Contra Bonos Mores
by Miranda Crystal-Bearer
Summary: What if Niko was not a saint, but a sinner? Cal's an abomination...but Niko's a monster. DARK AU of Moonshine, trigger warnings inside. Part of the Malum in Se universe.
1. Chapter One: News

**A/N:** I do not own Moonshine, Caliban Leandros, Niko Leandros, or any of the characters so contained in the works of the Cal Leandros series. These characters are owned by Rob Thurman. I'm just borrowing the ideas for my own twisted games. I do not own the song used to start the chapter!

_What would happen if Niko was not a saint, but a sinner? What if Cal was an abomination...but Niko was a monster_? How would their lives be changed? It's a dark descent into the depths of depravity, dependence, hate, and abuse. Strap yourselves in tightly. It's going to be a violent ride.

**TRIGGER WARNINGS:** Physical and emotional abuse, self-injury, alcohol abuse, victim complex, murder, torture, and overall misuse of Cal and total destruction of Niko's character.

Welcome back to round two, my friends! This story is a little slower on the pace, and it's pretty much an emotional roller coaster with Cal here, though the emotions are generally between shades of ticked-off, depressed, and panicking. Always fun.

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**Moonshine** AU - _Contra Bonos Mores_  
Part of the _Malum in Se _universe

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_Contra bonos mores:_ From the Latin; against good morals.  
_Malum in se:_ From the Latin; evil in and of itself, an act that is considered wrong to commit.

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_**Chapter One:** News_

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_Tell me baby, what's your story?_  
_Where you come from and_  
_Where you wanna go this time?_  
_Oh you're so lovely, are you lonely?_  
_Giving up on the innocence you left behind..._  
-"Tell Me Baby," Red Hot Chili Peppers

* * *

I was changing the bandage on my burnt palm when Niko came home.

"I have good news," he announced, stepping into the cramped one-room flat and leaning on the couch that doubled as a bed that was currently tripling as my medical table as I worked. "I found us a place to live, and it's bigger than this closet."

"Nik, hate to break it to ya, but that's not hard. Shoeboxes are bigger than this dump. Now what's the bad news?" Good news always meant bad news followed, and I wasn't stupid. I looked up at my older brother.

Grey eyes met mine, the only way you could tell we were brothers; both of us had the same iron-grey eyes. After that, we were opposites. I had jet-black stick-straight hair: Niko had pale blonde hair that tended to go wavy on humid days. I had the pasty pale skin of someone who didn't see a lot of sun: Niko's olive-toned skin was currently tanned even darker than usual. I stood at a nice average height, annoyingly not tall enough to see over the heads of any crowd except one made of midgets: Niko was over six foot and had no problem looking over any crowd. I was slender and sharp-edged, with bony elbows I kept trying to knock off on doorframes: Niko was sturdily built and muscular, like a statue of a Greek god.

Oh, and Niko was completely, entirely human: I was half a monster so horrible the entire supernatural world feared it.

Nice to know I had _something _going for me, even if it was going for me in a way that was mostly straight downhill. With sharp rocks at the bottom.

Life's just nice that way, see?

Niko delivered the bad news without so much as blinking. "We'll have to pay for it with a favor."

I stared at him a moment. "Well, shit, sweetheart, did you have to screw us over so bad?" I drawled, and reached for the burn ointment. The marks on my palm were closed up, but the skin was still really thin and tender there. They'd been third-degree burns, and Niko had put them there. He'd held my hand to the red-hot eye of a stove to make a point so I would remember the lesson.

I remembered it alright: it wasn't my fault.

Remembering and believing were two different things, though, and I wasn't going to be the one to tell Niko that.

"I'll be sure to tell them you disapprove," Niko chuckled, and sat on the arm of the couch. His long long braid, thick around as my wrist, swayed against his back as he did. The couch creaked alarmingly, but Niko did not so much as wobble. "We're to meet them to go look at the place in a few hours. You're coming too. And we're picking up the car."

Our car currently lived in the car lot of our erstwhile not-human ally named Robin Goodfellow. The Goodfellow, he was a puck, a long-lived race of tricksters and con-artists. Not surprising, then, that he was a used car salesman. Niko and I had allied with him because he was ancient, strong, and knew a lot...and was happy to tell you all if you even looked like you might listen. Yeah he annoyed the hell out of me, but that's actually most people who talk, so...about the entire universe annoyed the hell out of me. Goodfellow just took it to an entirely new level of 'I seriously want to stab you to make you shut up.' When he wasn't talking I liked him pretty well.

"Why the car? Where are we going?" I asked, and set a gauze pad over the burn-marks. I had this down to an art, after a good seven months. The pink marks were really fuckin' tender, and I'd tried going without bandages and I'd stripped all the skin off about a month earlier and I wasn't making the same mistake again. I wrapped a light layer of gauze over that and reached for the vet-wrap. There was another name for it but I'd forgotten it. It was the best stuff for bandaging _ever_; it was waterproof, it stuck to itself, it was stretchy, and I could stick duct-tape over it and that bandage was going _nowhere_.

"The Bronx, and we need a place for the car. We're being impressive today, little monster." Niko reached out and used a single finger to hold down the start of my bandaging. He was the very soul of helpfulness today - he'd made breakfast, helped me with my chores, and gone to work. And now he'd found us a place to stay.

We were currently illegally squatting in the back room of an apartment owned by Lilith, the partner of Niko's coworker Marvin. Lilith was a succubus. She liked Niko, respected him, and was terrified of him, so we had one room set up to live in and the whole place smelled of snake and sex. It was way cheaper than a hotel, though - the place was free and Lilith was nice enough, for a flesh-eating demon who lived and breathed sex. She said I gave her the creeps, but she did the same for me so it was even. I was ready to get out of here, though. Sure, I loved Nik, but four months crammed into a tiny back room with barely any breathing room was about to drive me to fratricide. Niko too, and I knew that because I had more bruises than usual. The newest one was still sore, the one on my shoulder he'd given me last night.

"So I should be packing when we arrive, or I should find a shirt that's not too wrinkled?" I asked, winding my wrist up. Niko removed his finger and picked up the scissors.

"Bring your guns," he answered, and cut the vet wrap for me, then ripped me off a strip of duct tape.

I stuck it down and flexed my hand. There, all better. I pulled my sleeve down and hooked my thumb through the hole. I always more long sleeves, but my favorites were the ones with the thumb-holes and the extra-long-cuffs. Not only were they warmer in the winter, they didn't ride up on my wrists and expose the bruises on my arms. Niko grabbed me often and I was so pale every bruise looked like a disaster. Best to cover it up and not have to answer questions from Good Samaritans.

I rubbed at the fading yellow bruise on my cheek. "Cover this up too?"

Niko leaned over, curled a finger under my chin and turned my face to the light. "Mmm. No, it's almost gone." He brushed his thumb over it, a featherlight touch, and sat back. "Let's get ready."

We did. I got my Glock 30s, my shoulder holsters, my knife, and some extra magazines and a few odds and ends; pocket knife, boot knife, mp3 player, suntetsu. Niko had picked one up for me last week, and the little metal rod was pretty damn inconspicuous but packed a hella punch. I liked it. I hoped I got to use it. I found a light jacket to throw on. It was spring, and actually warm enough that I didn't need it since I wore long sleeves anyway, but walking around with guns on was a good way to get the NYPD to pick you up and take you away. Niko was also wearing a light jacket, and his fingerless gloves. The gloves were loaded, good fighting gloves. Niko also had probably about two swords on him, plus a good dozen throwing knives. Where he hid them, I had no idea - the man had any Vegas magician beat.

We set out to get our car. It was an easy walk, but Niko jogged it. I put in my earbuds, cranked up La Roux, and jogged along behind him. We lived a hard life and any chance to stay fighting-fit was taken. I couldn't outrun Niko but I could keep up for three miles, easy.

Robin was out with a customer. Maybe there was a God and maybe He didn't hate me. We retrieved our keys from Dorothea the secretary, and headed out. The green El Camino was old but it ran like a dream. Niko had been improving it since he'd bought it from Robin - Niko had a knack for any engine labeled 'old as hell,' and this one had been in good shape to start with. Our last car had been patched together with duct tape, baling twine, and Fix-A-Flat before Niko had ever gotten it. But the El Camino, well. I played with the radio, which was much newer than the rest of the car.

"Hey, I could hook up my mp3 player if I got a cord," I realized.

"You could, but you won't. If I have to listen to Savage Garden in the middle of rush-hour traffic, I will hurt someone," Niko retorted, casually ignoring the speed limit or the fact that whipping the car into the other lane like that was probably going to cause a wreck someday.

"Nickelback?" I suggested, innocently.

"Don't make me throw you out in front of a semi," was the answer. "Porcelain and the Tramps?"

"I think I have Nine Inch Nails and Black Sabbath," I answered, scrolling through my music. "Niko, who on earth is The Axis of Perdition and why are they on my mp3 player?"

"They're a British heavy metal-slash-industrial band and I borrowed your account to find the album I wanted." Niko answered, tapping his fingers along to the radio, currently playing Kiss. I sighed and left it on the oldies station. Niko popped on the brakes, giving the driver in front of us a series of blistering curses in Rom. I added a few of my own and flipped the bird at the driver. With a booted foot I shoved the large sword back under the benchseat, from where it'd slid forward.

"Won't your swords fit in the gun-rack?" I complained, leaning down to peer under the seat best I could, heart still pounding from the adrenaline. The very illegal gun-rack behind the seat, but hey, we liked our protection. It housed both a high-caliber Remington 700 rifle and a Mossberg 500 shotgun loaded with buckshot, and I'd thought at least two of Niko's swords.

"All but the broadsword. Typical. The saber and the longsword fit nicely." Niko shot across three lanes of traffic to his turn-off, and a chorus of honks followed him. I didn't mind - I was used to the aggressive way Niko drove. Traffic laws and general road etiquette were for idiots who couldn't do it right, obviously. I kept an eye out for cops, and watched the neighborhood pretty much degenerate as we drove. But just as I thought we'd be slumming it, Niko turned up to a nice respectable-looking street and parked by the curb in front of an abandoned volunteer fire station. There was a large black car also parked there, and as we got out so did a man dressed in a nice pinstriped suit. I slouched along behind Niko, and decided I didn't like the looks of this dude, a typical dark-haired Italian-American looking guy.

Niko and the man went off in a flurry of something that was probably Italian. Niko was a polyglot - every cussword in Romany, but conversant in Spanish, French, Latin, German, Greek, and apparently now Italian. He had mentioned something earlier this year about his next project being Chinese. Well, good luck to him. I spoke English, could ream you out in Rom, and tell you your pants were on fire in Spanish, but that was the extent of my ability to speak a foreign language. I definitely wasn't counting Auphe on that score - after all, only my monster heritage spoke _that _and it wasn't useful for carrying on any conversation except how I liked your organs smeared on the floor.

You know how they say the Eskimo have over a hundred words for snow? The Auphe have over a hundred words for describing how blood hits the floor. My monster ancestors, the Auphe, they're a cheerful bunch...happiest when they're tearing their prey to little kicking screaming pieces. And what do the Auphe hunt? Everything under the sun. Including me and my brother - at first because I was the key to their plan to retake over the world (yes, _re_take) and now because we'd thwarted than plan and had probably killed quite a few at the time. I wasn't too clear on that - I'd been too busy dying at the time after Niko stabbed me in the lungs with his katana. It was all for the greater good, though, and here we were, apparently buying a house with some kind of favor instead of money. Hot damn, we were screwed over. Maybe I'd get to tickle Mario's kidneys here with my steel-toed boots if he tried anything funny.

"Perhaps you'd like to take a look," Mario said, in English this time. "You and your _fratello_."

I looked at Niko, who would know if he was calling me a dirty name. "Indeed, my brother and I would like to see what we're buying, _Signore_ Lucchese." Niko nodded, and followed along as the shorter man pulled out a fat ring of keys and headed for the fire station. I had to admit, the idea of living here was pretty cool. It was built of cinder blocks and looked sturdy as hell. Not to mention it was a _fire station_. Come on.

It was dusty as hell inside and there were no lightbulbs. I sneezed. "Revenants in the back," I pointed out.

Mario looked at me with eyebrows raised. "He can sense the _mostro_?"

Niko smiled, and it was pleasant and promised nothing good. "He _is _a monster. You're keeping an untidy house. This place is yours to sell and isn't condemned, correct? It won't go well with you if you lie to us. And my brother here can smell a lie."

"No, no, I assure you, it is for sale. I have the papers here, the contracts. Please, have a look." Mario pulled a folder from beneath his suit jacket and passed it over. Niko flicked it open and examined the papers within. I peered over his shoulder. They looked official to me. Niko rubbed a thumb over the ink, over the notary seal.

"And you will supply not only the property and the building, but also the contacts I want for renovating, provided we successfully complete this...favor to you and your family?" Niko queried, as he read over the papers.

I paid attention to the dark doorways at the back of the parking bay. Oh, hey, they still had a pole for sliding down from the second story, sweet! Let Niko handle the legalese, I'd watch out for the monsters.

"That is correct," Mario reported.

"Very well. What is your favor?"

"There is a particular object of some value that we wish for you to retrieve from the Kin."

The werewolf mafia? I glanced back at the conversation. Niko raised an eyebrow. "The Italian mob against the Kin. A unique situation. What object do you want?"

Whoa, back up. The _Italian mob_? Oh hell, we were fucked. No wonder Mario there was wearing such an expensive suit.

Mario described an ancient crown, passed down through centuries, that had very little market value but a hell of a lot of sentimental value. It was nameless as far as he knew, but he had a drawing, and he assured us that it would go to rest safe and sound in a museum once we got it. The problem, of course, was getting it. I made a note to ask Niko exactly _how_ he'd tracked down this place and why he thought working with the _Italian mob_ was a good idea. Much less screwing the Kin over. Both seemed like a good way to end up sleeping with the fishies. I heard the shuffle of the not-so-dead revenants and headed that way at a trot, pulling out my gun. Revenants looked and smelled like a decomposing human corpses, but they weren't human and never had been. With multi-jointed arms and slick moist skin and long thick tongues in mouths filled with jagged teeth, they were all inhuman and they moved like it, too. _Fast_.

Three of them. I slowed to a walk and fired off my Glock as I walked. Heads exploded with each step - I was a damn good shot, and pretty much the only way to kill a revenant was to sever the spinal cord. Exploding the heads was showy as hell and we were apparently trying to make an impression on Mario. The revenants dropped and I marched over, pulled out my six-inch boot knife and did a little extra stabbing. The smell was awful - ripe decay and the scent of old blood and death. I breathed as little as possible and headed back to Niko's side, pausing to scoop up my three spent shells, still warm in my fingers. Mario rooked impressed, especially after I smiled brightly at him. Niko hadn't moved an inch, but his smile was satisfied and pleased. He looked at Mario.

"If you achieve the crown, I will speak to the _Don _about making you associates," Mario said, after a moment.

"Done. Give us the required information." Niko offered out his hand, and they shook on it.

Boring legalese followed and I went exploring. Everything was dusty and dark, but it was roomy as hell for just me and Niko. The parking bay was open to the second story, but there was an equipment room and a back door and a bathroom all on the first floor in the back. I poked my head out the back door and grinned at the sight of a yard. It was three feet until the curb but it ran the entire length of the fire-station and was fenced in with a broken chainlink fence. Cigarette butts and trash littered the packed dirt. I went around and peered up the side-alley at the green Dumpster and then headed back inside. Awesome. Once inside, I headed upstairs, nosing around in the living areas for the firemen. Main area, kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, locker room... This was looking better and better. Fire escape, check. Nice. I clattered back down the rusty metal stairs and grinned at Niko, who had closed the folder and was passing it back to Mario.

He nodded and looked at Mario. The Italian man nodded. "I have the information in my car." He bowed and gestured for us to go out. Niko bowed back and went. I added in a bow, too. See, I was a monster but I had _manners_. Niko had made sure of that.

We were given a second folder, there was another conversation in Italian, and we parted ways. It was now almost night and I was hungry. There were gunshots a few streets over as Niko started the car and drove off. We'd fit right in. Niko glanced at a creature slithering down an alleyway, then looked at me. "What did you think?"

"I hope they hold true on fixing it up, 'cause it's a mess. But hot damn, Nik, there's a yard!"

Niko chuckled. "I thought you'd like that. I looked before I brought, trust me. The neighbors are nice enough, at least on that side of the street."

"So, how'd you end up getting in contact with the Mob?" I demanded. "Also, can we get pizza?"

"I was thinking Chinese." Niko leaned over and flicked at the radio, changing the station. It landed on a heavy metal song and he left it. "I got into contact through a friend of a friend of Marvin's."

Marvin worked with Niko at his first job, a chop shop for cars. Niko had a second, legitimate job working at antique car repair shop now, and he still had a part-time job running security gigs on the side. Niko worked his ass off, but he'd never done anything different. Where he still found time for his online classes I'd never know; he was working on his Master's in History from Oxford. Yes, in England. Hell if I know. He already had a Bachelor's in English from Princeton. Niko was hella smart and with a combination of that, the wonders of the internet, and easily bribable students, he had some pretty pieces of paper to show for it. But Niko worked hard and brought home enough to feed me and put some away for a rainy day.

I'd _had _a job. I was still looking for one now. I'd have to start looking at bars in the Bronx now. I wasn't interested in being a greasemonkey like Niko, and I sucked at anything that involved a lot of customer interaction. Bars it was - I could mix a mean drink and nobody cared if I dressed in jeans and jackets year-round. Plus, people-skills were not needed to sling drinks in the kind of bars I'd generally worked in.

We got Chinese, and ate in the bed of the El Camino, watching the traffic whiz by on the street. Niko, show-off bastard, ate with chopsticks. I had a fork and did not care. It was spring with just enough of a bite to make me glad I had a jacket and sleeves. It smelled like spring, albeit clogged with city smoke, exhaust, and fried oil. I worked on my sweet-and-sour chicken happily. "So. What do we know about the Kin?"

"They're insular, they're tight-knit, and they don't let humans in," Niko answered, calmly. "I was thinking of asking Robin to supplement what our friend Antony gave us."

"What, his name wasn't Mario?" I grinned. Niko groaned.


	2. Chapter Two: Locks

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used to start this piece! Say hi to Promise~

Thanks to halesgirl101 for the first review! Thanks also to Kin-outcast1 and Comuterale for reviewing!

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_**Chapter Two:** Locks_

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_Circling, circling your head_  
_Contemplating everything you ever said_  
_Now I see the truth, I got doubt_  
_A different motive and now I'm out_  
_See you later..._

_Back off I'll take you on_  
_Headstrong to take on anyone_  
_I know that you are wrong_  
_Headstrong, we're headstrong_  
-"Headstrong," Trapt

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When Niko and I got back to the car-lot, it was locked. Fortunately Robin had given us a key. Niko cut the engine and passed me the key-ring. I got out and manned the gate, then jogged back with the key. Of course, I or Niko could have picked the lock. There was even a kit in the glove-box. But keys were faster. I hopped up on the back bumper while Niko headed off to the back of the lot. Easier than jogging after him, and besides, I knew already we'd be jogging home. Hey, the faster you moved, the less likely you were to get mugged.

Niko parked the car and we headed over to put the keys back behind the desk. As he sorted the keys to find one one to the door, Niko nodded his head to the dimly-lit interior. "Would it be easy for you to get in there? You know."

I stared past our reflections on the glass door. "Yeah," I admitted. "But..."

"No need, anyway," Niko dismissed my answer easily, and stepped inside. Rather than follow, I leaned on the door-frame and watched him without seeing him. Niko had been doing that lately - asking me how easy it would be for me to gate. He wasn't pushing me _to_gate he was just asking. Which was good because I didn't think I wanted to.

Gating was what the Auphe did, how they traveled; they ripped a hole in reality and went through. Essentially, I could teleport. Yeah, just like Nightcrawler, only with fewer special effects and I wasn't a blue fuzzy elf. Every kid dreamed of having some superpower, right? So why didn't I want to use mine? Because every time before it had hurt, and I had a feeling that if I did it, something else might came out with me. Like an Auphe or five. Yeah, no.

We locked up and jogged home.

Bedding down on a couch wasn't easy, especially when there were two of you and after one night of trying the hide-a-bed it was declared totally useless as a bed. Tonight we each had an arm of the couch, and I'd put my feet up Niko's shirt and he'd stuck his under my pillow and we slept like sardines under a sheet because it was too warm for anything heavier. At least, Niko slept. I stayed awake and stared at the patterns the passing traffic made on the ceiling through the one window. I found myself slipping into a familiar circle of thought.

I loved my brother. I did. He'd gone through hell and back for me, Niko had. He'd even killed me to save me from the monster that had taken me over. But lately...

...lately...I just hadn't been able to stand him. Like everything he did annoyed me. And part of it was being crammed in this tiny little room, and part of it was that I didn't have a job and didn't feel like going out in public and so had been spending a lot of time in this tiny awful room. I'd been feeling better lately, about going out. The first month after Everything, as I'd started to call it, I hadn't wanted to go out at all. I'd just stayed in the hotel room Niko and I had been staying in. I just...hadn't felt safe. Like I wasn't safe to be around people, that no-one was safe from me and the monster I was. Also, did I think that all the Auphe had been killed after the warehouse had gone down? Did I own some oceanfront property in Nevada? I didn't know when they'd come try to get revenge.

So we were back to waiting, and it was worse in a way 'cause we knew we couldn't run from the Auphe. They knew where I was, and they were just...waiting. They could gate anywhere they damn pleased, even right here, and that was a thought that always made me go cold.

I curled my toes against Niko's back. He grunted in his sleep. I thought about kicking him, and decided I didn't really want the fight and the bruise that would cause. I'd had enough already this week - today had been the first day this week he hadn't hit me once. Either he'd been pissy or I'd been pissy and sure I knew mouthing off to him would get my ass beat, but it was just hard lately to keep from being rude. Niko wasn't afraid of me, and never had been, and for some reason after Everything that just felt wrong. He shouldn't be so _okay _with everything.

But he was.

Still not afraid of me, still careful to take care of me, when he wasn't giving me a new bruise. Still quick to assure me Everything wasn't my fault. He was wrong on that score, I was pretty damn sure, but I couldn't work out how to argue that without getting my ass kicked. Or worse, and I clenched my left hand, feeling the pull of the tender healing skin. It wasn't my fault, and he told me it was the truth, and when Niko said that to me he wasn't lying, and so logically it was probably right. It didn't _feel _like it was right, though.

And I didn't even really want to kick him, I was just...feeling pissed off at the world.

I guess.

I didn't know anymore and I was sick and tired of feeling like that. Sick of being cramped up in this little room. And sick of hunting for a job but not finding one. I felt useless, dangerous, and screwed up in the head and let me tell you, it wasn't fun.

I closed my eyes and fidgeted. Niko reached back and patted my knee. Get up or get trashed.

I crawled over the back of the couch and found my Gameboy. Time to put a few hours in on that stupid Pokemon game I'd found in the dollar bins at Goodwill. It was a waste of time but it was better than thinking the same things over and over again. Honestly I needed to hunt for another game, see if I could find Tetris again. Monsters that were friendly? What a lying waste of time.

I fell asleep on the floor and woke up with a crick in my neck and Niko picking me up. I blinked muzzily at him as he laid me on the couch, covered me with the sheet, and with a little smirk pasted a post-it note to my forehead. Without a word he left. I promptly fell back asleep for another hour.

Four hours of sleep. Pretty decent. If I could get more than that it was a damn good night. Insomnia, it was a bitch and a half to live with. I did my chores, and frowned at the last note on the post-it note. Meet Niko at the chop-shop at three, bring guns. What the hell, he'd probably found a little side-job to run. We did little jobs here and there for people Marvin knew or Marvin's motorcycle gang. I actually kinda liked the jobs - often they involved extracting or killing monsters. I didn't mind killing monsters. I liked it. Even if these days it sometimes gave me flashbacks to Darkling and Everything. Those were fading, though, and it was a relief. Flashbacks, contrary to TV shows, weren't nice pretty replays of the past to remember useful details. No, they were gut-wrenching moments of vertigo and nausea and terror, along with a side-dash of deja-vu. At least, that's how it was for me.

So I cleaned things up, got my guns and everything, and since it was still some hours early, I went for a walk. It was face the crowds or stare at the walls, and I was sick of smelling snake.

I decided I'd hit up Goodwill and look for some games. Or books. Sometimes they had good Westerns. So I took the subway and headed off to the biggest Goodwill. The crowds were packed but that was New York for you. I was just another face in the crowd, and not every face was human. I smelled at least one werewolf and two others, something inhuman that I didn't know a name for. Things mostly knew what I was and stayed the hell away, which was nice in a way. Either that or they decided I was an abomination and should get eaten alive, and then I had to shoot things. It got messy.

No Tetris. But I had found another Louis L'Amour novel, so that was at least one good thing.

I was flipping through it when I bumped into someone on the street. I turned to snarl, already checking my wallet.

And I looked up into heather purple eyes.

"Oh shit," I said instead and turned to run.

"Caliban, wait. Please." Promise caught at my jacket sleeve. Her pale hand instantly reddened and she tucked it back under her cloak. Vampires did not burst into flames in the sunshine - instead they would get a pretty severe third-degree burn that would take a long time to heal. It was probably stupid of me, but I waited. I was still ready to run like hell, but... She looked at me and she was sad. Promise the sad velvet vampire...won't you be her friend?

"Promise." She was wearing pearls under the thick velvet cloak, pale against her pale throat. I grimaced, because I'd set her and Niko against one another...or, well, Darkling had. Not exactly the nicest thing to do and probably good grounds for gutting or other revenge.

"He...Niko told me that...what had happened. Caliban, was it true?" she asked, barely heard above the crowd. She stood still and the crowd parted around her like water around a stone.

"Was what true?" I asked. A lot of things had happened. Everything. I didn't know what Niko had told her.

"That it was not you who called."

"Well, it was me, but it was Darkling, too. He'd, um, merged with me. We were trying to get rid of Niko and you were handy." I grimaced, because that sounded wrong but it was true. I looked up at Promise, trying to read what she thought of that.

Her face was still, quiet, like a stone angel's in a cemetery. "I see," she said, gravely. "Niko said as much. He was...enraged."

"Darkling was trying to piss him off. I know how to punch his buttons." Which was very true and I half-smiled at that. "Did he fight with you?"

"Surprisingly, no, once he saw you were not there. He did break an extremely expensive vase, but no other damage was done." Promise pressed her lips together. "You are...still with him, then?" She was looking at the yellow shadow of a bruise on my cheek, I could tell.

"He's my brother. Where the hell else would I go?" I asked her. "Especially after Darkling."

"Surely there are options," she began.

"Not for halfbreed monsters like me," I answered, and smiled at her. A little moue appeared on her face, and I wondered how she didn't know. "You'd know my family, I'm sure. Red eyes, metal fangs, they're a blast to be around."

Now her eyes widened, but only briefly. She was cool, I'd give her that, deep in the shadows of her velvet cloak. "That would...complicate things," she admitted, and there was a new wariness in her eyes. Good. I was a monster and I was dangerous. She needed that caution. Even if she was a monster too.

"Damn straight, sister. Now why don't you take your well-meaning fangs and go shop for that vase, or something," I suggested, but not as roughly as I could have. She was still a girl even if she was a vampire. Niko would bust my ass if I was rude to anyone who didn't deserve it. So far, Promise wasn't deserving it. She wasn't running screaming into the streets or tearing out my throat, either, so that was a bonus.

She blinked at me a moment, then inclined her head. "Very well. But, Caliban?"

"Yeah?" What parting shot would this be? She was all cool and slick and not very readable. I couldn't scent her in this crowd or over that damn perfume she always wore.

"My offer to you stands. If you desire a refuge from your...brother, then please, do not hesitate to contact me." Promise reached into her coat, and in the blink of an eye had deposited a little black card into my Goodwill bag. "Good afternoon, then." She smiled, turned, and walked off.

What in the _holy hell_?

She was nuts. Batshit crazy. That was it. I dug in the bag and pulled out the card. It had her name on it, her address, and her contact numbers, all in fancy lavender font. I stared at it, then after her, vanished entirely in the crowd. Yeah, she was nuts. Or wanted to suck my blood. Or both. I couldn't _wait_ to tell Niko about _this_. I tucked the card into my book, and headed on my way.

When I told him, Niko promptly snorted his water and spent a full minute coughing. I leaned against the toolbox in the back of the chop-shop and grinned. Marvin gave me a high-five. Getting the jump on Niko was fun, because it damn sure didn't happen often.

"She did _what_?" Niko managed.

"Offered her house as a safe haven to yours truly if I ever decided to escape your wicked clutches," I declared, _with feeling _as one of my old drama teachers had said. It had been band or drama. I'd gone drama, Niko had gone band. Hey, my name was from Shakespeare anyway.

Niko coughed a few more times. "Even after she knew you were Auphe? Shit, she must be crazy."

"I've always heard most blood-suckers are," Marvin offered. "Promise Nottinger is an old one, too. She's been here in this city a long while."

"Old, and powerful," Niko surmised. "Test it out carefully, Cal, and don't get in over your head."

"I'm already in over my head, Nik, she's a vampire," I snorted.

"True enough, little monster." Niko smiled at me, still a little red in the face. "Alright, Marvin, what have you got for us?"

Marvin tossed his braided hair over his shoulder and rubbed at his scaly cheek. Incubi were just as related to snakes as their succubi cousins. "I have a friend who knows a lady who knows..."

"Yeah, we know how all your stupid shady contacts go," I broke in, before we could get to the second cousins. "Point, Marvin, I'm not feeling patient today."

Niko cleared his throat pointedly. I scowled.

Marvin, however, got to the point. "Extermination job a little upstate, near Husdon Falls. They've got an infestation of bodachs and the paien in the carnival need a little help getting rid of them."

From the way Niko grimaced I took it that bodachs were not good. "I'm presuming they want us tonight?" he asked.

"As soon as possible," Marvin agreed. "I'll call and set up the meeting for whatever time you want."

Niko tipped his head to one side, then the other, grey eyes distant for a brief moment. He straightened and they were focused, bright. He named a time. "I'll need to go back to our apartment and get heavier weapons. And we'll need to pick up the car."

Heavier weapons. I perked up. That meant a hard fight or things that didn't die easy. And when Niko found things that didn't die easy, well, we tended to have fun. Niko's kind of fun was pretty damn messy. I nudged his shoulder with mine as we left. "What's a bodach and how do we kill it?"

"Scottish monster. Climbs down chimneys at night and eats little children. And they're tough bastards to kill. You have to take them apart, essentially." Niko shrugged his jacket on a little tighter as we walked to the subway. "I want heavier blades. You'll probably want more firepower."

Given I loaded my Glocks with .45 hollowpoints, some pretty heavy hitting stuff to begin with, I raised an eyebrow. "Desert Eagle or shotgun?"

"Bring the shotgun," Niko answered. "And a box of shells. Do you want to borrow a short sword?"

Looked like we were going in armed to the teeth. Hot damn.

Armed to the teeth and speeding. Niko had won the coin-toss and we were listening to Five Finger Death Punch. Not my favorite but hey, I'd lost the coin toss. I tried to tune it out, watching Niko pass other cars on the highway. "You know, hunting these things after dark sounds like a crappy idea."

"I don't see that we have a choice," Niko returned, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. "It's not as if we can't see in the dark, anyway."

He had a point. We both had excellent night vision. "So, when are we starting that other job? You know, the one where we get killed by the Kin then disposed of by the Italian Mob?"

"O ye of little faith. I'll talk to Robin tomorrow and see what he can give us."

I thought about it. "Nik, don't tell me you're stringing Robin along like one of your girls."

"No. While I am aware of his infatuation I am _not _indulging it. I most definitely am not attracted to him. He's quite knowledgeable, and we have had several entertaining debates. Well, despite the very explicit stories." Niko grimaced. "There was no desire or need for me to know about his sex life. I think he's just trying to see if he can make me choke on my wine."

"Yuck. Another reason why I just don't want to talk to him. That and he's annoying as all hell. Oh fuck Nik dog!" I blurted, seeing the tawny shape crossing the dark road, glaring in the headlights and streetlights.

Niko swore, braked, and swerved, tires squealing. We missed the damn dog and I slumped in my seat, fingers tingling from the adrenaline spike. Niko swore again and picked up the speed he'd lost. I looked back in the mirror to make sure the mutt had made it. He had.

"Thanks."

"Of course." Niko shook his head. I didn't like it when he hit dog or cats. Wild animals were one thing, pets were another. Niko was of the opinion that if it was smaller than a deer, he wasn't going to risk a wreck trying to avoid it. But he knew I didn't like it and so he tried. "You could talk with Robin more often. He's quite curious about you," Niko continued.

"He can stay that way. I like him when he shuts up, which is never." Robin was more Niko's friend than mine - they met regularly enough to talk over good wine. Robin was quite the wine aficionado and was pleased to find Niko had a good palate. Me, I liked a good rose every now and then, but it just wasn't my thing. That, and Robin _never shut up_. Sometimes I could get him to talk about myths and then that was interesting but then he'd drag the conversation back to himself and his raunchy stories and just no.

"Suit yourself. It probably wouldn't hurt your delicate psyche to have an acquaintance or, heaven forbid, a friend." Niko glance briefly at me.

"Sure, mom, whatever," I tossed at him, half-annoyed, half-cheered. Niko was just that way, he worried about me. "I think my 'delicate psyche' is just fine."

"Don't make me turn this car around," Niko retorted, mimicking a woman's scolding tones, and that just did it for me. I burst out laughing. God, only Niko.

Red and blue lights lit up the back window. Niko glanced at them, nodded, and floored it.


	3. Chapter Three: Pieces

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used to start this piece!

Major breakdown ahead.

Many thanks to Comterale for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to Kin-outcast1, halesgirl101, and LeighAnnWallance for the review!

* * *

_**Chapter Three:** Pieces_

* * *

_Well then suddenly, there was no-one left standing in the hall, yeah, yeah_  
_In a flood of tears that no-one really ever heard fall at all_  
_When I went searching for answer, up the stairs and down the hall_  
_Not to find an answer, just to hear the call of a nightbird_  
_Singing "Come away, come away."_  
-"Edge of Seventeen," Stevie Nicks

* * *

By the time we'd reached the fairgrounds, we'd outrun two cop cars and had taken the scenic route in. Typical Niko style. I'd never know how he knew all the back-roads to take. We never got lost. Ever. I was half-monster, but Niko had all the supernatural talents.

We met with our client just outside the grounds themselves and he unlocked the gates for us. He had a bass voice even deeper than Niko's, deep enough to rattle in my chest when he spoke. I had no idea what he was, though no doubt Niko knew. He worked in the carnival sideshow as Bartholomew the Bull, World's Tallest Man. He was about eight feet tall, which was pretty damn tall. He had a second mouth high on his forehead concealed under a shank of ginger-coloured hair, and a faint pattern of scales along his jaw. There was a heavy gold hoop hanging from his nose (which gave me the cringes imagining getting that pierced, ow!) and large, liquid brown eyes that were barely human. He was strong enough to rip the bodachs into pieces, but too slow to actually catch them. That was where me and Niko came in. We were faster, if a damn sight more fragile.

Armed and dangerous, we went in. Niko had drawn his broadsword and I had the shotgun cocked and my finger on the trigger, stock against my shoulder. I'd gone with a thicker jacket to help cushion the recoil. Damn thing bruised my shoulder almost every time.

"I suppose I should mention the bodachs have been dressing like clowns," Niko commented.

I twitched. "Oh, thank you, let's tack on another minor phobia of mine for the nightmares tonight," I drawled, sarcastically.

"If it really was a phobia, you wouldn't be out here still," Niko pointed out, with a grin in his voice.

He had a point. "Clowns are creepy-ass bastards but I've been shanghaied by worse. This time I get to kill them anyway. Let's go." I paused to look around. A closed carnival was an eerie sight; spiderwebs of metal and the rides still and unlit. The Ferris wheel loomed like a petrified skeleton, the slouching beast that had never made it to Bethlehem. The lingering smell of butter and grease had gone rancid, and a cheap and turn stuffed dog, the prize of any number of fixed games, lay at the base of a garbage can. One blank button eye had torn away, leaving a raveled stuffing socket. Poor bastard, he'd missed his ride to the Island of Misfit Toys. The yellow bulbs strung about the carnival were all out, and only a thin nail-pairing of a new moon gave us any light beyond the distant reflected glow of the city lights behind us.

The bodach came boiling out of a pile of trash, seven-inch-long razor talons raised, showering stale popcorn and stained napkins everywhere. For a moment my heart stopped, seeing the long hanks of blonde hair fluttering from its claws...then I saw the dirty-faced blonde doll in its other hand. No kids yet, and I raised the shotgun, took aim, and shot it with both barrels. Once in the chest and once in the head, reducing the top half of its head to a nice shattered ruin. It dropped.

And twitched and quivered and wriggled. I stared. "Damn, you weren't kidding about the hard-to-kill part." I pulled out my spent shells and reloaded. Then the smell hit me and I gagged. "Oh holy shit that's _rank_." A reek like that could strip paint. I hurried upwind before I really started heaving, my mouth already watering.

"Vile." Niko's face was scrunched up, too, and he watched the twitching thing try to get up. It was gurgling, and waving its claws. Niko stepped in and with one easy swing removed an arm. He repeated the process. I tried not to breathe, and watched as Niko finished dismembering it. Then he stepped back and I shot it in what was left of the head. It stopped twitching. Niko did a little extra hacking even after that.

He stepped back and eyed the blood stringing from his blade. "This stuff is like tar. Be careful."

"If I can. Don't get that shit in your hair," I returned.

Niko nodded, and thrust his blade into the earth. He wound his braid up along one fist, then shoved it down his shirt. He fished in his coat-pockets and pulled out three things - two pairs of light gloves and a tube of...toothpaste? He offered this to me. "Try putting that under your nose if the smell bothers you."

I hesitated. That would block off my sense of smell entirely, and I wasn't sure I wanted that. I did take the gloves, though, and Niko poked the toothpaste in my jacket pocket. Older brothers, helpful even when you didn't want it. "Happy hunting," I told him.

"Same to you. There are supposed to be three more. Shout if you need help." Niko nodded, turned, and vanished utterly into the shadows without a sound.

Like I said, I was half monster, but Niko had all the supernatural abilities.

Me, quiet was the most I could hope for in steel-toed combat boots, but I wasn't too worried about sneaking. I had a shotgun tonight, I was damn near invincible. (Unless the stench overwhelmed me first.) I headed out across the dark fairgrounds, following my nose. Not too damn hard, all things considered. The scent led to the Ferris wheel, of all things.

I liked Ferris wheels. I'd never been afraid of heights, and in my day I'd ridden plenty of Ferris wheels. Sophia, our fraudulent lying fortune-telling whiskey-drinking whore of a mother, she'd occasionally hooked up with a carnival every now and then with her act. Carnies' kids got free run of the place until it closed down, got free hot dogs and popcorn and cotton candy, and every show was free. Hog heaven, right? Well, right up until hot dogs and popcorn were a staple in your diet for weeks, with no vegetables except soggy fries, and was it any wonder Niko and I shoplifted fresh vegetables from the nearest grocery stores? Incipient scurvy aside, the nights had been miserable stretches of endless heat and humidity. Niko and I had slept under the stars most often, on a sheet and with sweat-soaked pillows, as Sophia made use of the trailer for earning more money on the side. I figured out really young that "whoreson" wasn't just an insult to me and Niko, it was the plain truth. To me that just took the sting out of it.

I liked Ferris wheels, alright, but I didn't like it when they came with monsters. I circled it once, trying to get a good lead, then looked up. Sure enough, the son of a bitch was waving at me. Waving, threatening to eviscerate...it was one of the two. I leaned back, took aim, and blasted off an arm for my troubles. I went scurrying out of range as it tumbled slowly end-over-end and splatted on the ground with a crunch. I peered back up at my target - vanished. Well, they had some sense. I went to check out the control box. Nothing doing. The wiring was torn out in chunks and destroyed. Wonderful.

I peered up at the bucket, marked by the smear of dark blood. How to get from point A to point B? Climbing was the obvious answer. A less obvious answer nudged at me, but I ignored it. I'd never been up there and I wasn't risking it. So. Climbing it was.

Off came the combat boots and I reloaded my shotgun. I slung it over my back with the sling and started up. The metal of the ride was slick with grease and soot and oil, and while I was light and goddamn good at climbing it was tricky going. The ground vanished away into darkness as I made my way up. Well, no way to see when you'd hit until you did. I didn't like that. I liked to see what was about to take me down, thanks. Up above me, the one car rocked back and forth, stained with blood. I kept climbing.

"Cradle will rock," a voice crooned from above, startling me. Barbed wire and ice, acid-etched glass, not exactly meant for singing. Like an ice-pick through the ear, in fact. "Rockabye. Baby. Rockabye."

Nursery rhymes. Shit. Nursery rhymes and clowns. Even I knew that nursery rhymes were far more morbid than people realized, but this was taking it to a new level of sick and twisted. Four bodachs but no missing kids yet. That was something of a miracle, really, from what Niko had said. Did I know a lot about bodachs? No, I did not, I'd never heard of them before. Niko knew a hell of a lot, though, and I trusted him to know the truth. So far he'd been right on all accounts; child-eating predators, cunning in disguises, damn hard to kill. I kept climbing. The bodach kept singing. God, that was awful. I'd kill it just for that.

I sat poised on a metal rebar and watched the bucket swing over my head. The stench of bodach was potent but the breeze was carrying most of it away. I was thankful for that small mercy. My options, now that I was up here, were a bit slim. It was going to be hard to get up in there without opening myself up to an attack. I grimaced, but the angle was bad for me to climb any higher. Well, nothing for it, Custer's last goddamn stand. I uncoiled in a quick spring, balance perfectly sure, and grabbed the lip of the car, slick metal and rough fiberglass catching at my greasy gloves. I landed heavily on the seat, right behind the bodach, whose back was turned. The car swayed sickeningly and for a bare moment, as I drew the Roman gladius Niko had leant me, I saw the pastel shadows of the red-and-green suit, the wig gone and greasepaint smeared over the wrinkly dry hairless brown skin.

Before the bodach could move I put the short sword straight through its spinal column in a shortened thrust.

The bodach went down almost disgustingly easily. It slumped without so much as a twitch. I hauled on my blade as the creature went down and managed to get it lodged between bones. I grimaced. Niko wouldn't like it if we had to leave a sword. I gingerly placed my bare foot on the cloth-clad, still-warm back and yanked. The sword came free with a grinding crunch.

"Long live the king," I muttered, trying to shake the tarry blood off the blade. Not a lot of luck. I bent to wipe it on the bodach's clown suit.

The bodach twitched. It rolled half-over.

And there in its arms was a tiny little girl, her hair in pigtails, her neck at a grotesque angle, blood staining her nightgown.

Fuck. Oh fuck.

I blanked out for a little while.

When I came back, it was to Niko calling my name. I blinked and looked down. In the moonlit darkness I could see the pale shimmer of his hair, far away at the base of the Ferris wheel. I was sitting at the top, perched in the metal girding, my dirty bare feet dangling hundreds of yards above the earth. I stared down at him, and then at my hands, bare of any gloves. I couldn't think - I felt frozen and cold, shaking in the mild spring breeze. I didn't want to think. I didn't want to stir up the memories that were there, indelible, though I knew I'd see them again tonight.

Children should never die like that, at the hands of a monster.

Niko called my name again. How he knew where I was, in the weak moonlight...

My place was with him.

Without a thought, I pushed away from the metal I'd been holding onto, and slipped off into the cool night air, wind catching at my face in a freefall.

The gate pulsed through me and I landed softly right in front of Niko.

Niko startled, then reached out to me. "Cal..."

"Niko, they killed her," I told him, bleakly. "A little girl, oh Jesus Nik it was _eating _her..."

Niko snatched me up, arms tight around me, and I rattled against his warmth. My teeth were chattering and his hold was almost painful, like he was holding me together. I was all over with bodach blood and the smell of death and Niko muttered soft and low in my ear, embracing the killing monster and I shuddered. Eating her, eating her, _God _was there anything worse than that? Worse than knowing that humans were food and that human flesh was sweet and fatty like pork. I gagged and Niko turned me, and I leaned over his arm and threw up. I felt like there was grease on my tongue but it was only bile and I felt like screaming but I didn't. I didn't.

Is there any feeling in the world worse than when you're trying so hard to hold onto yourself, but every passing second makes it clear that you're not going to last much longer? The five minutes it took Niko to tell Bartholomew about the girl, get paid, and bundle me into the car sitting on a tarp to protect the seat were the longest fives minutes of my life. Niko's words echoed in my ears as he pulled onto the dark roads. "Put her in the water." Wash away the evidence. "Put her in the water."

I had a really, really bad panic attack. Niko turned the music up loud to cover my screams and I let the world go away.

I hazed out of nothingness to Niko picking me up out of the car. He was humming, softly, and the sounds of city traffic were close. He shut the car door and carried me up to the apartment. I put my face in his shoulder and didn't think. I heard Lilith's voice, and Niko's reply, sharp and unforgiving. She wasn't important, and I was shaken a little farther out of the nothingness when Niko sat me down on the edge of the tub. Holding me with an arm around the waist, he started running the water, then leaned back and started stripping me. His face was grave and quiet, and his eyes, meeting mine, were full of concern and care. My hands were clumsy when I reached to help, but I took my bath on my own and Niko took away the dirty clothes.

It was a bad night.

Last night Niko had threatened to trash me for wiggling my toes.

Tonight, I slept on top of him on the narrow couch, my head on his chest, and when I fought my way out of nightmares he held me down so I didn't hurt either of us, strong arms crossed over my back and humming that old, old lullabye and crooning my name until I knew I was me again. Water in a glass with a straw, a broadsword with its hilt handy, my Walther PPK's wooden grips familiar in my hand. And through it all Niko's voice, deep and tired and steady and patient.

I woke up snugged between him and the back of the couch, my head on his chest, my gun in hand. Niko was sleeping, deep and hard, his chest rising and falling under my hand, his heartbeat steady and strong in my ear. I laid still and stared blindly at the sunshine. I felt sore, exhausted, both mentally and physically. I had a faint throb in the back of my skull that promised to be a blinding headache when I moved. So I didn't. I stayed very still and closed my eyes and tried to relax, figure out what was most sore. Not that it mattered, really, a serious panic attack like that left me sore all over.

When I lifted my head, Niko woke up - a slight tension hummed through him the instant his eyes opened. Scanning the room first, he looked to me last. "Hey," he offered, voice roughened. "Awake?"

"Yeah," I croaked, throat raw from screaming, wincing as my head started a dull throb. " 'm up."

Niko stifled a yawn, jaw tensing. "Head okay?" he asked.

"Yeah." All quiet inside, and my head was aching like hell, but I was okay. I felt fragile, damn straight, but I was okay and if today was a good day, I'd stay that way. I felt Niko nod.

We didn't get up for a little while. Niko dozed and I stared at the sunshine and for a little bit I was safe. I know, it was a pretty, childish lie but I needed it for a little bit, Niko's hand on the back of my neck and his heartbeat in my ear.

Niko stayed home with me all day. He called Robin and apologized for missing lunch, made arrangements for another day, and stayed home and sat in the sun for most of the day on the fire escape reading War and Peace. I sat with him for a little while, read my Western and then napped a little too. Niko cleaned his swords, I cleaned my guns, and we did our stretches together. Niko did some of his homework, I played on my Gameboy. Niko was patient and kind all day, without a cross word, barely a flash of temper. It was typical of him after I'd had a really bad night, and I was grateful 'cause I didn't think I'd be able to stand anything else. We didn't talk much. I didn't feel like it and Niko knew that and it was just comfortable.

As we were eating supper, I asked him, "How pathetic is it that we have this kind of routine for a day after I have a breakdown?"

"It's not," was the prompt answer. "If I had a fever, you'd give me medicine. If you have a bad night, we have a quiet day after." Niko eyed me over his clam chowder. "The only pathetic thing about it is the waste of good roll. Eat it or put it down."

I glanced down at the roll I'd been thoughtlessly shredding, and put it down. I went after my shrimp instead - I could pull those to pieces and still eat them after. "What'd you tell Robin?" I'd been mostly half-asleep at that point.

"That something urgent had come up." Niko shrugged. "I'll meet him tomorrow. Do you want to come?"

I thought about it, and ate my shrimp. "Sure." Why not? I might learn something. "I still don't see how we'll do this."

"I have a plan in the works." He always did. "We'll manage, and then we'll have powerful protection. We can slip through the cracks if we run, little brother, but you and I aren't used to staying out of sight in one place. If we become associates with the Mob and live with their allies on that street, we'll have a measure of protection from the law and other human troubles."

Niko and I were pretty much petty criminals, it was true. He had a big point, and a good one. We could handle the supernatural element, the paien, well enough; they lived by the law of the jungle, red in tooth and claw. Kill or be killed. But people? We could lie and steal and fraud with the best of them, but all on our own it would be hard to stay in the shadows. New York was huge, sure, but we couldn't be careful all the time. Somebody had to slip up somewhere, even Niko. I finished off the one shrimp and went after another.

"I guess so." I was still uneasy.

"Have faith, Cal." Niko smiled, then glanced at my hand. "Do I need to help you redo that bandage?"

I had a long raw streak up my wrist where the bodach blood had gotten into my clothing and had taken skin off when I'd scrubbed it off. I nodded.

After supper, then, I stripped off my shirt and Niko bandaged. I examined the mottling of bruises down my arms, brighter than usual and varied in colour. Overlapping fingerprints and long thin stripes. I had a fat blue one on my shoulder and a spider-webbing patch of broken blood vessels over my stomach and shortribs on my right flank, and a yellow-green bruise on my left hip peeked over the waist of my jeans. Niko bandaged my right wrist easily, sure in his task.

When he was done, he reached up and touched my tattoo. Darkling's idea, but my own words, in a plain black and red band over my right bicep. What did it say? _ABOMINATION._That's what I was. A half-breed freak, a monster worth killing. Something that shouldn't have seen the light of day. I glanced down at it. At least it was well-done, and not some shitty old kanji or a skull or a heart with 'Mom' in it. Darkling hadn't realized how much of me there was to take over, hadn't realized that I was Auphe and had a lot of bite in me. I'd told him what to get and he'd gotten it. I looked up at Niko.

"It has a certain...charm," he said, after a moment.

I snorted. "You don't have to be diplomatic." I grabbed my shirt to pull it on again. "It's badass and it's true."

"Very well," Niko chuckled, and put away our medical stuff.

I wasn't looking forward to trying to sleep tonight, but maybe it wouldn't be too bad.


	4. Chapter Four: Information

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used to start this piece!

Thanks to Kin-outcast1 for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to Comuterale, halesgirl101, Obi the Kid, and LeighAnnWallace for reviewing!

Remember, guys, if you have any scenes you particularly want to see acted out, drop a line and I'll see what I can do! Also, if ya'll have a song or poem or quote that you feel is particularly applicable to this dysfunctional universe, don't hesitate to tell me about it.

There's a poll up on my profile for a collection of most-certainly-random-AU drabbles. I dunno where to put them.

Also: SLASHBACK CAME OUT TODAY! (Insert loud high-pitched and totally uncharacteristic fangirl squealing here.)

* * *

**_C_**_**hapter Four:** Information_

* * *

_I'm not sure what I'm looking for anymore_  
_I just know that I'm harder to console_  
_I don't see who I'm trying to be instead of me_  
_But the key is a question of control _  
-"A Pain That I'm Used To," Depeche Mode

* * *

Robin was, unsurprisingly, in a good mood. I was in an okay mood, all things considered. We were having lunch at some fancy Italian restaurant. It was fancy enough Niko had ditched jeans and T-shirt and gone with black slacks and a charcoal grey button-up. He'd clubbed his braid up and was hiding a short sword under that blazer. Me, I had a black button up and slacks and Niko'd tied a little narrow ribbon (I don't know where he even found it) over my ponytail elastic to spruce me up. I told him sneakers and slacks were sprucing up. I felt naked without combat boots, even if I did have my Walther PPK in concealed carry at my hip. Robin, as usual, looked like a fashion plate and his tie matched his eyes.

I sipped my rose wine and cradled the thin glass in my hand, rubbing a calloused fingertip against the slick surface. Niko gestured with his glass, illustrating his point on how the Epic of Gilgamesh was merely a folk-tale related to Noah's flood in the Hebrew Bible. Robin listened with a little smile on his face, then launched into a counter-argument. I ate my shrimp scampi and listened. Seafood for me for a little bit - fish only tasted like fish. Niko understood that. I'd have to go back eventually... Niko was all for a vegetarian diet, healthy food, but we'd figured out I couldn't do without meat. I lost weight, and since I was already a lightweight to start with, that was bad. So meat it was, though Niko still did his best to sort out veggies and salads and rabbit food like that. The argument wound down and Robin got another bottle of wine. He could drink the stuff like water. I was only on my first glass and Niko on his second, still half-full. We didn't get drunk in public and besides, this was just a social lunch. A glass or two wouldn't make us tipsy at all.

Niko sipped his white wine and set it down, turning to his alfredo. "There's a job I'd like to ask you about. I've been having difficulty digging up good information. Since you know so much, I thought you might be able to help."

Robin smirked. "I do know a lot, that's true. What job have you taken?"

"We're looking for a certain object. It was rumored to be in the hands of the Kin last."

"The Kin? You're in with the big boys this time," Robin mused. "That's tricky. I can see what I can do. What're you looking for, and do you have any further specifics?"

"Yes. I have a drawing, and I know the name of the pack's Alpha who has it." Niko reached into the inner pocket of his blazer and removed two small folded pieces of paper. He held these out to Robin between two fingers.

Robin took it, flashing Niko an amused smile, and unfolded them. His eyebrows rose. "Cerberus. Interesting name. I'll look into it. It may take me some time."

"Thank you." Niko smiled sunnily. "If there's any way I can repay you..."

Robin flapped a dismissive hand. "Niko, Niko, this is that friend thing, remember?"

Niko chuckled. "Ah, yes. I'm still not used to that." He picked up his glass and saluted Robin, smiling, before he drank. I was not taken in - Niko was playing Robin, complimenting him, jollying him into a good mood. Niko was smooth and he was good at it, and it helped Robin was half-inclined to be jollied and flattered anyway.

"Though if you're really interested in repaying me, then you could do it with fewer clothes on," Robin leered, smile suddenly predatory.

"Keep your carnal fantasies to yourself, I'm trying to eat," Niko returned, hardly batting a lash.

I pantomimed gagging. Niko snorted at me. Robin shook his curly head and glanced at me and my mostly-full plate. "Not hungry? That's unusual," he commented, lightly. "Usually you've got an appetite like a Norse raider."

"I had a bad night recently," I explained, with a shrug. "Put me off my food for a bit. Bad job." I offered a wan smile, trying to assuage the faint shadow of guilt that darkened his green eyes. Robin still felt bad about releasing my memories of my time kidnapped with the Auphe. I didn't blame him or anything, though I still wasn't sure if it had helped or not. With Everything having happened so soon after, there was just no way to tell.

"Too bad. This is some of the best food in the city," Robin said, after a moment. "It doesn't compare to the food I ate in Rome, back in the day, let me tell you..."

I pulled my earbuds out of my pocket, stuck one in the ear closest to Robin, and turned on my mp3 player. I'd come prepared. With Nirvana in one ear and Niko nudging my knee with his under the table and grinning at me, I felt better. Robin glanced at me, green eyes bright - oh he wasn't offended. It was almost a running joke now for me to whip out the earbuds, or even earplugs by now. I grinned back at him and picked up my fork, feeling a little hungrier than before. It was good food, and the wine was excellent. The company? Well, it was pretty good too.

We walked home in silence. Niko was in a good mood, I could read it in the set of his shoulders. I was feeling full and pretty damn pleased with the world, too. Rather than going straight home, Niko and I stopped and sat for a little while in a used book store. I liked the old musty smell in here, and the wrinkled old prune of a lady behind the counter always gave me free coffee. I hunted for Westerns in the bargain bin, while Niko browsed the jumbled rows and searched for whatever tickled his fancy. He picked up the weirdest books sometimes. I found three books for a nickel and Niko picked up an ancient copy of Grimm's fairy tales and something in Latin that was so dusty he sneezed picking it up. We walked out into the sunshine with books and me with coffee. It was very good coffee. Niko was amused rather than insulted that the old lady hadn't given him any free coffee. He didn't like coffee much anyway.

Lilith was not home, and I was damn glad.

"So how long are we waiting on Robin?" I asked as I collected stray laundry for tomorrow. Niko was getting dressed again for work at the antique car repair shop.

"As long as it takes. I'll talk to Marvin and see if Cindy can give me anything about werewolves." Niko grinned brightly. "Will you be alright if I took a late night?"

Niko had picked up another girl. "I'll call you if I'm not." All I knew about Cindy was she was pretty, blonde, and wanted to walk on the wild side of the city. Niko had picked her up a few weeks ago and had been staying out late with her. I'd met her all of once. Typical of Niko's girls, she had looks, money, and not a lot of sense. Niko liked to have fun. Don't get me wrong, they were were smart girls, just not the most sensible kind of girls. Anybody who let Niko drive their brand new Ferrari on the first meeting definitely didn't have a lot of sense.

"I'll keep my phone on," Niko promised. He would, too. I'd called him in almost every situation known to man and he'd always come flying home to me without hesitation.

I definitely didn't deserve him, or his love.

I changed my own clothes and went out job-hunting while Niko was at work. I went out to the Bronx this time and looked, near the place Niko was wanting. There were a few bars that were hiring but only one that seemed very interested and it was a little nicer than my last hole-in-the-wall job. I hoped I got it but I wasn't leaning heavily on it. After the gunfight in the street that started after I passed, though, I decided it was time for me to head home. I did make a detour, a long one, and went to the Park first.

I jogged along a trail until I found a very familiar mudhole. I stopped and stamped one foot.

Boggle's orange eyes rose out of the muck, and he grumbled. "You. Whaddya ya want?"

I crouched down and shrugged. "What do you know about werewolves?"

"Not a lot. Don't hold with the furry bastards," Boggle rose a little higher, until all of his head cleared the muck.

I wasn't afraid of him, and I never really had been, but he was much less a threat after Robin had split one of his giant hands in two. Healing that would take a long, long time, even for a monster. Boggle was still a dangerous predator, sure, but he was not a threat to me with a lame foot. And besides, I had his measure now. Darkling had known him far better and now so did I. Niko had apparently come to his own understanding with Boggle. I hadn't asked about the details. I didn't want to know. What I did want to know was more present anyway.

"Tell me how the Kin works. And do you know anything about a pack led by Cerberus?" Boggle might not know anything, but anything extra we knew could help us.

Boggle didn't know a lot but what he did know was very interesting. Hearsay and rumor, but very interesting.

I headed back to the apartment and said hi to Lilith. She giggled at me, and kept talking on the phone. I retreated to the tiny back room and broke out the laptop. I started off doing research on werewolves but ended up fooling around for a few hours doing pretty much just crap. The internet was a great waster of time. And I had some details to throw at Niko now. Heh.

I wasn't really one for research. I was content most of the time to let Niko do that. He'd tell me exactly what I needed to know. But I was worried about this job, and how we were going to do it, and how we were going to not-fail on it. Because seriously. The Mob. Yikes. And...it was giving me something to _do_ because I was tired of doing _nothing _right now. I mean, for a little while I'd been okay with doing nothing. But now I was starting to feel restless and itchy and just plain frustrated. Boxed in, I guess.

It was a Saturday night, I realized. Aw fuck. Niko was going to get smashed and come home sometime Sunday morning. Well, there went that day.

Sure enough, it was bright and early on Sunday when Niko grabbed my by the hair and yanked me off the couch. I howled and kicked and caught a boot to the hip, rolling me across the floor twice. I sat up, bruised and carpet-burned around the edges. "Fuck, Nik, just 'cause you're hungover doesn't mean you can knock my head around!"

Niko sneered silently, grey eyes bloodshot. He had a puffy split lip and his knuckles were raw. He'd been fighting. He sat heavily on the couch, clutched his head, and then reached fumblingly for his boots.

I got to my bare feet and left him to it. I got a glass of water and a pair of aspirin and headed back to the couch. I set these down by his boots and grabbed my mp3 player. I was pissed and I sure as hell wasn't getting back to sleep anytime soon. And it was too goddamn early. Too goddamn early, way before seven. I got dressed, found my coat and shoes, and went to sit on the fire escape to fume, cuss, and throw spitballs down on people's heads. With Alice in Chains cranked up loud, I managed to fall dead asleep again on the fire escape.

I woke up with a funky pattern impressed on my entire left side and a face full of raindrops. Spluttering, I scrambled back inside. It was something close to lunch and Niko was snoring, face-down on the couch. At least he was alive. He stank of alcohol and blood and vomit, something dark and tarry dried in his braid. I wondered if he'd fought for Cindy or if he'd dropped her off and then found a fight. I got myself something to eat, switched to Soundgarden, and took a book to the windowsill. I watched the rain fall instead of reading, though, watched it bead up and run down the dirty window.

Then Niko's cell rang: this week the ringtone was the old Meow Mix jingle, thanks to me. He roused, swearing indistinctly in Rom, pulled it from his pocket and pitched it across the floor. I scrabbled after it on hands and knees and checked the number. Cindy. I answered it. "Hey, Niko's cell-phone."

"Oh hey Caliban!" Cindy squealed. I winced. Damn she was bright and cheerful this morning. "Is Niko around? He took me to this awesome bar last night! It was way out on the outskirts and he got into this huge fight and there was an old man there who said he'd tell my fortune if I bought him a beer! I told Kathy and we totally want to go back and see if he'll tell us our fortunes!"

I grimaced. I thought I knew which bar that was. "Hey, Cindy, I don't think you should go without Nik, 'kay? He's sleeping right now."

"Aaaw, c'mon Caliban, I got this!" Cindy giggled. She was drunk. Why was she drunk at this hour?

"Nah, I'd wait for Niko. Please Cindy? Just a little bit?" I begged.

"Oh, I guess, 'cause you said please and you're so cute!" Cindy went off into giggles again. "And Kathy and I are kinda tipsy, we probably shouldn't be driving..."

I seized on that gratefully. "Yeah, you don't need another DUI. So just stay home for a bit and ask Niko later, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. You're so cute, did you know? Bye!" With one last giggle she hung up.

I glared at Nik. He'd better appreciate me saving his damn stupid girlfriend from being _eaten _by the wendigo at The Indigo Wendigo. The name wasn't a lie at that bar. I went and found a post-it note, and wrote down 'Call Cindy' in big letters. I'd stick it to his forehead. Payback.

While I was doing that, Niko's phone still in my hand rang again. I flinched from the noise and answered. I ought to start charging for secretary service. "Hey. Niko's cell-phone."

"Caliban. Good to hear from you. Is Niko available?" Robin asked, good-naturedly.

I glared at the couch and Niko's inert form. "No. He's not. I'll take a message."

"Actually I was hoping he'd meet me for lunch. I have some of the information he wanted."

I looked at the clock. I looked at Niko. "He's busy. I'll come." We needed that information.

"You will?" Robin sounded quite surprised. I didn't meet with him by myself very often at all. Maybe three or four times since Everything. "Alright. I suppose you want to go to that one pizza place?"

"I'm in the mood for Mexican." Spicy and hot because it was raining outside.

"Right. I'll meet you at twelve...hmmm." After a moment he named a place pretty close by. I agreed, he hung up, and I added 'gone to lunch' to the note.

I stuck the note on Niko's forehead, and he didn't even move. I got a more rain-proof coat and found my weapons. Niko had better _appreciate _this because I was really making some sacrifices here for him, and after he'd given me a headache and a brand new bruise that was making me limp. Damn, he'd pinched a nerve and that goddamn hurt! I grabbed my mp3 player and marched out of the apartment into the rain. A spitting, cold rain that was just plain nasty and did shit for my mood. Sure, let's rain on this goddamn shitty parade.

Today, life sucked balls.

I slouched into the chair across from Robin. He raised an eyebrow at me, but aside from a 'good afternoon' he didn't ask anything until we'd gotten our food. A few bites of some really damn good salsa made feel less like taking Robin's face off just for existing. Half a nice beer made me feel almost sociable again. Robin very diplomatically kept his mouth shut until I looked up at him. "So. What you find?"

Robin smiled. "A few things about Cerberus, and his standing in the Kin. Politics, most of it, but the furry kind can get just as complicated as any other kind. Can I ask who pissed in your coffee today?"

"Nik. He stayed out late last night and I fell asleep waiting up for him," I lied. "He probably found a pretty girl and stayed out chatting her up, but damn it'd be nice to know that, you know?" Reasonable enough, and socially acceptable, not 'my abusive brother came home stone-drunk and gave me a half-assed beating at five in the morning.' Yeah no way in hell would that fly.

"Oh? I didn't think Niko would be that inconsiderate," Robin offered, with a little wry smile. "I'm surprised you weren't with him."

"We do have lives of our own, you know." Well, Niko more than me, but hey, he was human and fit in a hell of a lot better. And he had more patience for stupidity. Had to, he lived with me. But we did stuff on our own. It had occurred to me, though, that I didn't know what Niko had told Robin, and what it was okay to spill. Niko was a private person, and Robin might not know some things that I did. I'd have to be careful. Hot damn. My life _sucked _today. Here was hoping tomorrow might be better.

"That is true. It's not often you talk to me, either," Robin teased. "I was starting to think you didn't like me, as impossible as that sounds."

"Oh, yeah, fuckin' impossible. The question is, how does everyone overlook your damn fat ego?" I shot back.

"That's part of the charm," was Robin's riposte. He was king of verbal sparring, and on my best days I was barely a contender.

"Part of the trap," I snorted, and ate some of my nachos.

Robin chuckled. "You're wearing one of those atrocious shirts again. Don't you have any fashion sense?" He pointed at my longsleeved T-shirt and the extra-long-cuffs with the thumbholes.

"Hey, I like these shirts. Keeps my bony wrists warm. Know how hard it is to shoot with cold hands?" I demanded. The _real _reason I liked these shirts was because they couldn't ride up on my wrists and expose any bruises by accident. After years of wearing them I was almost acclimated and didn't really mind a lot until it hit high summer and then I was ready to melt. I was pretty sure Robin was only affronted by my fashion disasters, though, and not suspicious about abuse.

"You are thinner than average. I'd ask if Niko didn't feed you but I know he does and I've seen you eat," Robin chuckled. "Where do you put all that?"

"Nik swears I've got two hollow legs." I shrugged. "He might be right. Now what do you have on Cerberus?"

Robin told me. It was a hell of a lot more than what Boggle had given me, and Robin promised he'd have more later. He knew a friend. Typical; I was starting to think there wasn't anyone Robin didn't have an in with. Niko had been right; he was a very, very valuable ally. I had a notebook and I blatantly took notes. Hey, I had a good memory but this shit was kinda important. Robin complimented me on my handwriting. Niko had hounded, fussed, cajoled and threatened until I'd learned to write neatly. It was nowhere near Niko's perfect copperplate hand, but it was decently readable. Hopefully it would still be readable through the salsa stains.

When I got home, Niko was not home.

I was just about to call his cell-phone when he walked in, damp but clean, almost sober, and looking only a little rough around the edges. "That friend of Cindy's will get her killed one day. I have bad news."

"What?" I honestly couldn't think of anything to connect those two statements.

"Somebody contacted Marvin. They want us to do a little investigating." Niko shed his damp coat. Under it he had no less than three swords and two knives. "Guess who this Caleb works for?"

"Who?"

"Cerberus."

I blinked. "No shit."

"No shit." Niko grimaced and ran a hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose, before he sat down on the couch. "I don't have to tell you how much I don't like that. It reeks of a trap."

It did indeed. Neither Niko nor I believed in coincidences. "Damn. What are we going to do?"

"I don't know," Niko grated out, testily. "I need to think about it. What did Robin tell you?"

"A lot. And I hope you appreciate me talking your girlfriend down from going back to that bar, asshole," I snapped, the mention of Robin reminding me that I'd been righteously pissed at Niko earlier. The anger swirled up again in an instant, hot and thick.

"Mind your manners, monster," Niko retorted, looking up at me with annoyance in his face, a warning in his tone and grey eyes.

"Mind _my _manners? Fuck, Nik, you came in here at goddamn _five in the morning_ and threw me around by my _hair_! I'm not some dumb bitch to throw out of your bed when you're smashed!" I shouted, furious again. "Mind your own manners, bastard!"

Niko shot to his feet and swung a punch. I tried to dodge. It clipped my jaw and staggered me to my knees. I was so angry I didn't even think; I bounced back to my feet and flew at Niko's throat. He caught my shirt in one hand, swept my legs out from under me, and sat on me all in one liquid motion. I coughed and dragged in a sucking breath, before trying to kick him. The angle was wrong, the bastard. I twisted and swore and did nothing but wear myself out fighting against a hold I couldn't break. Niko sat there, utterly silent, and face-down on the cheap industrial carpet I couldn't read him.

I stopped about five minutes in, panting for breath and damp with sweat. "Fuck. I give."

Niko _chuckled_. "Alright. Feel better?" he asked, and swung off.

The question stopped me as I started to get up. I froze on my hands and knees, then blinked and sat back. "I...yeah. What are you smirking about, jerk-face?"

Niko chuckled again, and he wasn't angry. He looked...happy. I sniffed cautiously. He didn't smell drunk or high... "Okay. What the hell is up with you. And how'd you know I felt better?" I demanded. I thought about it and realized that over the past month, Niko'd been acting almost _pleased _when I'd snap back at him, until I pushed too hard and made him angry.

Niko sat crosslegged not a foot from me, relaxed. He rubbed gingerly at his scabbed lip. "Because you used to do that all the time."

"What?" I blinked.

"When you were younger you'd get damn pissy any time I hit you. You stood up for yourself. I'm glad to see that again. It's been a long time." Niko shrugged. "After the Auphe took you...I didn't even recognize you, the way you acted. They'd broken something in you and I didn't know how to fix it. But now you've been acting an awful lot more like the kid I remember from before. The one who gave me a hell of a lot of lip and pushed me back hard as I pushed him."

I blinked. "Really? I..." I did remember Niko as having been a hell of a lot more annoying back then. Almost as annoying as he'd been lately. I'd just figured we'd grown up and stopped fighting and something was just wrong with _me _lately. "I've been getting tired of just being angry all the time. Like I can't settle."

"Well, I'd hope so, you've been boxed up in this closet for four months," Niko snorted. "You're getting better. Moving on. And I'm so damn glad to see it. Found a job yet?"

"I...maybe. Bar in the Bronx said they'd call me back by tomorrow." I shrugged, and felt weirdly better. Calmer, and actually like I might could talk to Niko without wanting to punch his face in. Or anybody else's. Who knew pitching a goddamn temper tantrum like a toddler could be so therapeutic? "You think I'm getting better? It hasn't felt like it."

"It never does. Trust me." Niko shook his head gingerly. "Now. Let's see what Robin gave you and talk about what we're going to do about this nice little trap."


	5. Chapter Five: Plot

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used to start this piece!

But guys, I WAS RIGHT. OH I WAS SO RIGHT. Slashback was gorgeous and beautiful and made me laugh and made me tear up at the end and _I was right_ about so many theories about Niko! Also...Viking!Niko has pretty much turned from AU to canon. I _love_ it when I guess right. (Personal songs for Slashback: "The Cave," Mumford and Sons, and "Lifeline," Imogen Heap)

Though I feel kinda ashamed for working on such a nasty, nasty fic when Cal and Niko canonly have such a gorgeous bond.

Well, I gues I'm committed now!

Thanks to Chades for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to halesgirl101, Kin-outcast1, LeighAnnWallace, and Comuterale for reviewing!

* * *

_**Chapter Five:** Plot_

* * *

_I feel it deep within, it's just beneath the skin_  
_I must confess that I feel like a monster_  
_I hate what I've become, the nightmare's just begun_  
_I must confess that I feel like a monster_  
_I, I feel like a monster_  
-"Monster," Skillet

* * *

Niko and I had a plan. It was a shitty plan and involved a lot of flying by the seat of our pants. See, shitty plan. Not that any plan ever survives the first engagement with the enemy... I couldn't remember who said that first. Niko probably knew. He knew things like that. So tonight we'd be meeting with this Caleb and telling him how very interested in his job we were and seeing if that could get us an in with Cerberus so we could steal his crown and head on out with the hounds of Hell behind us. Figuratively, I doubted Cerberus, despite the name, was a hellhound. I hadn't met any of those yet, and I doubted Niko had either. Robin, maybe. I made a note to ask him.

Later.

This afternoon, though, I was back in the Bronx, getting shown around the Climbing Rose bar so I could start working there tomorrow. I was actually really glad about that. I was surprised by how familiar and comfortable it felt to be behind the bar again, listening to people talk and shout and the horrible music that was playing over the radio. I felt _good_, and that was a relief after so many months. By the time I left, it was dark and from the sirens and lights there was a drug bust going down just a few streets over. Nice neighborhood, at least there were drug busts.

I caught the subway home and met Niko at the door. He had groceries and he raised an eyebrow when I grinned at him. "Job interview go well?"

"I start tomorrow," I answered, holding the door for him. "First paycheck in a week."

"Good. Then I can actually make money instead of pouring it all into groceries," Niko teased, as he went inside.

He made stir-fry with chicken. I managed to eat it and not feel too sick about it. Good for me. Niko seemed to bounce off my good mood and by the time we washed dishes and started arming up to go see about the Caleb dude, he was humming under his breath, a deep bass rumble that made my ears buzz when he hit deeper notes. Gunshots mess up your hearing big time, by the way. I didn't mind the buzzing; I'd take Niko in a good mood any day. I had fewer weapons to hide, and was done faster. I was lacing up my combat boots when he stooped over me on the floor and dropped something in my lap. I picked up the plastic carton curiously as his palm rested on the back of my neck.

"Oh hey!" It was an auxiliary cable I could plug into the car's radio and use to hook up my mp3 player. I tipped my head back to look up at him, and grinned. "Thanks."

"Of course," he answered, smiling back. He pinched me lightly on the back of my neck. I thrust an elbow back at his knee more playfully than with annoyance. Chuckling, he hopped aside and fetched his own boots.

We took the subway out to the Flatiron district. Apparently Caleb was the accountant for Cerberus, and he had an actual office. It was a nice office, ritzy, wood flooring, a Persian rug, plush chairs in deep blue and wine, sedate lighting, walls of pale ivory, boring prints of classical art. Yeah, fancy shmancy. I was a little surprised. Werewolves weren't known for sophisticated business tactics, but maybe Cerberus was out to start a new trend. He was certainly all about equal employment opportunities for his differently abled fellow wolf; the wolf guarding the inner door was an albino. He certainly wasn't pure-blooded; he stood upright like a man, with a mostly-human face, but his eyes were a round wolf's stare, ruby-red and predatorily intelligent. His ears were slightly tapered and his forehead was a wicked wedge. His hair fell to his shoulders in a shockingly white wolfish ruff, and he had long white sideburns. And when he opened his mouth, well, the huge fangs crammed in there were definitely inhuman.

He'd stared at me the entire time, which was just plain rude in human terms and aggressive and dominant in lupine and canine terms. I'd stared back for a while, then gotten bored and dismissed him with a blink and a sneer. I probably could have taken him apart, but was the insult worth this trap of a job? Not really. Niko had blatantly ignored Fido there from the first, obviously superior. Me, well, that stare had me itching to fight just for the sake of a fight.

I sat beside Niko and waited almost patiently instead, fingering the hilt of the knife at my belt. Niko checked his watch briefly, and glanced towards the door. "It's been nearly twenty minutes," he commented, lightly. "If we're not so important as to be seen right away, I think we may be wasting our time."

That made our albino friend at the door shift his feet. He turned his head to the door suddenly, attentively, and reached out to open it. I raised an eyebrow at his nails - claws painted black, and definitely useful for opening up cans. His lips writhed and his throat worked, and he spat out a few words only - hard to speak around fangs like those, apparently, and with vocal cords barely human too.

"Go. In," he snarled.

Niko got to his feet and walked silently across. I followed along behind him. The door was more than wide enough to admit us side-by-side, but I knew who had the situation well in hand, and it wasn't me. Sure, I could handle the big bad wolf here, but we were here for negotiations, not brawling. Niko had always been the better charmer; there was something personable about his smile. Me, even if they couldn't tell _what _I was, the Auphe in me made people and paien uneasy around me. Hard to like someone when your hindbrain was telling you they were probably going to eat your face off.

Inside door number one was...another office. Expensive and good-looking but not really worth looking at. The guy behind the desk wasn't a wolf. In fact, I didn't know what he was. He looked human. Smelled like it too. Dark brown hair, blue eyes, lean and sleek in his suit and tie. Then he smiled.

Bingo. Membership card in the nonhuman club if I'd ever seen one.

It was his teeth. They weren't fangs - no, Caleb here had the usual amount and size of teeth. They were just all pointed. He looked like a cheerful piranha, albeit one with an MBA. Weird, sure, but with all the weird I'd seen in my life it wasn't worth more than a passing glance.

"Brothers Leandros. Please, have a seat. I'm Caleb." He straightened a stack of folders on the desk. "Would you care for coffee? Drinks? Drugs? No? Very well." He laid his hands flat on the desk and gave us his full attention. "I have heard that you may be able to assist us."

There were two chairs in front of the desk. Niko sat down, flicking a hand at me as he did so. A tiny shooing motion to behind him, I knew what it meant. We were being impressive again. Niko sat, and I stood behind his chair, a lazy grin forming on my face. I didn't particularly feel like shooting Caleb here in the piranha grin, but if Niko wanted me to look like I was hungry, hey, I'd play the card. It was a routine we used pretty often, and more lately than ever before. More and more here in this city knew about the Auphe, and if it gave us more weight to throw around, the better. Niko was a big believer in stopping a fight before it got started, as much as he loved _to _fight. Niko's smart as hell, and fighting is a damn good way to kick up more trouble than you want.

It was our own personal good-cop-bad-cop routine. Only Niko was the bad cop and I was the monster ready to eat your face off for the hell of it. It worked pretty damn well most of the time, and when it didn't, we got a good fight.

"We may be able to help you," Niko agreed. "But I'd like to hear more details before we commit."

"Details?" Caleb leaned back in his chair and picked up a pen, tapping it against the desk. I didn't miss the way his eyes jumped to me, then to Niko. "Certainly, that's fair enough. Ask away." He was ingratiatingly polite, and I wondered if the Kin were lowering their standards. No threats to rip out our throats, no challenging stares...for a monster he was being unnaturally docile.

"To begin with, I'd like to know what the result of our actions will be. We will not set up anything that results in a backlash on us. I'm sure you understand." Niko's lips smiled but I knew his eyes would be cold as steel...cold as the thin stiletto he produced from a sleeve, playing idly with the blade, gaze fixed on Caleb.

"I understand," Caleb answered, and he looked at the knife, paling faintly. He began to sketch out the details we wanted, prompted by Niko's pointed questions. Niko knew exactly what to ask, sharp as any blade. It was apparently just like the Italian mob, the constant jockeying for power, only with more brutal violence and eating eachother. Cerberus had a "friendly" rival over in the East Side who he suspected was less friendly than the guy was pretending. They were supposed to be working paw-in-paw with their Alpha, but Cerberus had suspicions that if he was out of the way, his rival wouldn't exactly be crying at the funeral and would have a lot more territory to boot.

"So Cerberus wants this Boaz to take a long walk off a short pier, to end up sleeping with the fishes." That was my new favorite phrase lately, since we were _dealing with the mob_. This was going to get us in watery graves if we didn't play it right.

Blue eyes blinked; looking bemused, Caleb replied, "No. He wants to kill him."

Apparently Caleb didn't watch a lot of TV.

"I was led to believe this was the usual method of advancement among the Kin," Niko pointed out. "Why involve outsiders?"

"Normally. You know the wolves well," Caleb answered, all obsequious smoothness and fawning. He wasn't a wolf, but he worked with them, and he knew an Alpha when he saw one. Niko was just as capable as his boss Cerberus of fucking him up but good. "However, Cerberus is in a unique position among the Kin. What he does is scrutinized far more thoroughly. A misstep on his part will not be tolerated." Another smile, so polite, so helpful. It made the old Tarzan movie flashbacks I was having even more bizarre. A leg falls into the river to be stripped to the bloody bone by teeth exactly like that. Terribly sorry to have eaten you, dear fellow. _Mea culpa_.

Niko was not fooled by the bowing and scraping. "And if we obtain proof that Boaz intends to make the first move, that will put Cerberus in the right with his Alpha."

"He believes so."

Typical of children everywhere. 'It's not my fault he hit me first!' I bit my lip to keep from laughing and when Caleb looked at me I simply grinned at him, showing my own teeth. He paled - my grins tend to have that effect on people. Niko says it's because I look particularly demented when I'm grinning like that. Never tried looking in a mirror to tell for myself, though.

There were more details, and I was damn glad Niko was the one listening. I'd have had to take notes by now, but Niko would have it all in his head. What Niko knew, I knew. Now we knew where we could find Boaz, who he ran with, how best to introduce Cerberus as the topic of conversation, so on, so forth. Apparently the big bad wolf liked gambling, poker, and alcohol. Not too surprising. Almost everyone did these days, it seemed.

"And what," Niko said, at last, "Is the price you'll pay us?"

"Fifty thousand."

I only _just_ kept my jaw from hitting the floor. Holy _hell _with that much, we could just buy that goddamned fire station, never mind all this nonsense about favors. Niko nodded slowly. "We require half up front," he told Caleb. "In cash."

Caleb paled. "I can have it to you by tomorrow." Obviously numbers boy didn't have that much on hand. Who would, aside from those of us like me and Niko who didn't trust banks and simply lived from paycheck to paycheck with more or less success. Yeah, we were on the poverty level there, but we'd been that way all our lives. You get used to it.

Niko named a time and delivery place for the money exchange, and we were up and out. I waved cheerfully at the werewolf as we left. Niko nodded amiably, and it wasn't until we were a block away that he turned to me and grinned widely.

"Hell, Cal, that's a _lot _of money."

"Fuck yes! I hope you have a plan, Macgyver, 'cause I'm fresh out of ideas on how we're going to do this." I gave him a shrug.

"I have a plan in the works," he assured me, still grinning. "For now, I think we should probably brush up on our poker skills. Do we even have a deck of cards in the apartment?"

I thought about it, then shook my head. "No, I don't...no, wait, we've got that tarot deck."

Why did we have a tarot deck? Occasionally, Niko and I busked on streetcorners. We had done that for food money growing up and while on the run, but now that we'd settled in one spot it was less for food and more for the fun of it. There was something exciting about charming a complete stranger into paying you for fraud and trickery. Niko did things like juggle knives or acrobatic flips. Me, I was occasionally the live volunteer for the knife-throwing but I also had my own set of tricks. I was a beautiful monster, Sophia had said, and with her whiskey-and-black-velvet voice I'd inherited, I could do a damn good fortune-teller act. Was any of it true? Not a damn of it, but after living with Sophia I knew all the ways to fake a fortune. Thus, the tarot deck. But we could definitely use it to play cards, too; after all, they'd originally been meant to use as playing cards.

"Excellent. Let's go home." Niko smiled and turned, a chuckle on his lips. I smiled and hurried to keep up with his huge swinging strides. He was damn near _bouncing_ but I was _giddy _and with good reason. That was a huge chunk of cash; we'd be set for a long while on that. We always worried about money, honestly, being pretty much poor as shit, and that could set us at ease for a while.

Home sucked. Lilith was having a party. Niko and I could tell when he hit the front door. We looked at one another, and headed 'round for the fire escape. Niko used a knife to jimmy open the window and we crawled in. The music was loud and the smell of snake and sex was so strong I gagged. Niko scowled furiously, and without even speaking we knew there was no way we were staying in here tonight. I got my mp3 player and blankets; Niko got a bottle of vodka, a flashlight, War and Peace, and both our pillows. Out onto the fire-escape we went, and Niko set up the blankets and I had a long swig of the vodka. I leant him an earbud, we agreed on Nine Inch Nails, and he settled down with his giant book. I sat beside him and we traded the bottle of vodka back and forth between us, until it was gone and I was drowsing in long awful sleepy waves against Niko's shoulder.

I woke halfway up when Niko shut his book and put an arm over my shoulders, tucking me closer to his side and pulling the blankets up higher. I took a deep breath; smell of _Niko _and vodka, old books and smoggy city-spring air. I slept.

I woke up the next morning when Niko shifted and his shoulder clicked loudly in my ear. For a minute I didn't know where the hell I was, but I wasn't worried by it 'cause I was with Niko. Then I realized we were out on the fire escape like hobos, and it was misting rain. I sneezed, and Niko jumped awake in surprise.

"Sorry," I muttered, rubbing my nose.

"No worries," he mumbled back, and yawned. "Breakfast, huh?"

"Breakfast," I agreed. "Hey, I think I slept all night." I didn't remember waking up, at least, and I felt goddamn _perky_. Amazing what more than five hours of sleep can do for you.

"Thank the heavens for small mercies," Niko chuckled, and shrugged his shoulder. "Now get off, I can't feel my left foot."

The apartment was silent. Or it was until Niko cranked up Porcelain and the Tramps, and then we could hear Lilith and at least three others cursing in bleary hungover voices. Niko grinned maliciously and locked the door and kept the music loud. I worked on frying up the bacon and Niko made pancakes and we had breakfast to heavy metal and the sound of Lilith banging on the door and telling us to 'shut that goddamned noise off!' Niko went to work in a brilliant mood, and I left the radio on and went through a few martial arts routines. Lilith eventually stopped banging and went away. I turned the radio off and started cleaning my guns.

I had other chores to do, the usual list, and the laundry from yesterday which just hadn't gotten done. And I was starting my new job tonight, down in the Bronx at the bar. I was looking forward to it; something to _do _to get out of this nasty shoebox of an apartment.

The laundromat was down the street; since we technically didn't exist to the landlord, we couldn't use the washer and dryer in the office. So I lugged a dufflebag of dirty clothes down the street and took a book with me. Nobody paid me any attention, and I only paid enough attention to know nobody was a threat. Not that I was _normally _attacked in a dingy coin laundromat, but hey, you never knew.

It wasn't while the clothes were going that I was accosted. Nope, that came after. And it came from the very last soul in the universe I expected.

I was waiting lazily to cross the street, dufflebag over my shoulder, when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned and found myself staring into serene brown eyes framed by freckles and curly red hair...and livid purple-red healing scars down each freckled cheek.

Georgina.

I gaped. She opened her mouth. And what did I do?

I turned and ran like the yellow-livered coward I was.

Damn near got turned into roadkill for it, too; a really close brush from a taxi sent me to hands and knees on the curb, but before anyone could help I was up and gone. I booked it from there to the apartment and locked the doors behind me.

What could one little redheaded girl do to me, biggest baddest monster of them all?

Only remind me of what I'd done, what I _was_, and how I'd laughed while trying to kill her.

I didn't want to know what she'd say to me.

I was getting better: Niko had been right. I only threw up once, even if I spent the rest of the afternoon as a shaking ball of nerves under the couch, one of Niko's shirts under my head so I could smell him and not the incubus stink in the rest of the apartment. It helped, to smell him, and being under the couch helped too; I could barely fit, just barely, and there wasn't any room for anything else. The gun in my hand? Well, we all have our security blankets; some are just more lethal than others.

Niko came home, and before he could sit on the couch and probably break something important I called to him.

I heard him pause, before his boots came across the floor. He knelt and lifted the skirt of the couch, peering under with the top of his head resting on the floor. He studied me gravely, and didn't ask why I was under there. Instead he just got down on his elbows and slipped a gloved hand under the couch. I grabbed it, felt the skin-warmed leather and the rough callous on his fingers, the strength in his grip and the careful gentleness, too. He tugged, lightly, and I started crabbing out from under the couch. Niko made a slight face as I emerged, head-first.

"I swear, you should not be able to fit under there," he muttered, as I unwedged my hips.

I'd heard it before. I crawled into his lap and he wrapped his arms around me. I hid my face in his shoulder, and sure it was damn embarrassing for me, all grown up, to be crawling into my older brother's lap like a _child _but after being on the verge of a full-blown panic attack all afternoon I was too exhausted to really care. Niko didn't say anything negative about it. He never did and he never had. Instead he sat quietly and waited.

"I...I saw George," I told him, nose against his collarbone. "She came up to me on the street."

Niko grunted a little. "Damn."

I managed a little rattled laugh. "Yeah. That." But I felt calmer, and I wasn't shaking anymore. Niko was picking at my ponytail. I probably had lint all in it from the underbelly of the couch.

"What did she say?" Niko asked, his voice a soothing rumble deep in his chest.

"She...I...I ran." I shook my head, dislodging his hands. "I didn't...want to know."

"Understandable." Niko curved a gloved palm to the back of my neck, bare fingers rough-calloused against my bruises. "How're you feeling now?"

I thought about it. "Tired, hungry, and kinda blank," I confessed. At least I didn't feel like panicking anymore. Always a bonus. "What time is it?"

"You've got plenty of time to eat and get to work," Niko assured me. "And even shower if you liked, but only a short one." He pinched the back of my neck lightly, but his fingernails broke skin and I flinched.

"Ow."

Niko stroked the hurt once, then let his hand drop. He sighed deeply, and waited. It took me another minute, but then I sat up straight. Niko let go and I slid out of his lap to sit on the floor, our knees touching. He looked me over - there was grease smeared across his cheek and when I looked down at his hands his fingernails were black with it, the ridges of his fingerprints outlined in stark relief. Niko sat still and waited patiently, until I nodded and got to my feet. Okay. I could do this. I could go to work and be okay and not have a screaming mental breakdown.

I was a monster. Niko said it wasn't my fault and I had the scars to remember it by.

I was a monster, but I was my own kind of monster. Not Darkling's kind.

I was an Aupheling, an abomination, and I was going to live with that.

There were worse ways to live.

Niko got to his feet and smiled encouragingly. "I'll heat something up. Go shower if you want."

"You're the one who needs it, grease-monkey." I tried to tease but it fell flat. Niko still chuckled.

I showered, and I ate, and I went to work.

It didn't exactly cheer me up, but it felt like it was a good thing to do, and I didn't have a panic attack or even a minor freak-out. I got to throw out a customer who was acting up and my new boss made noises about giving me a pay raise if I was going to double as a bouncer, too. Any raise from bare minimum wage would be an improvement, honestly.

It made the amount Caleb and Cerberus were paying us look like a fortune.

I hoped Niko had his plan ironed out.


	6. Chapter Six: Monsters

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used to start this piece!

Tarot cards were used as regular playing cards long before people began to tell fortunes with them. Did you know that? Well, now you do! I thought that was a fun bit of info!

Thanks to Obi the Kid for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to halesgirl101, LeighAnnWallace, Kin-outcast1, Chades, and Comuterale for reviewing!\

I have a poll up concerning some very AU Leandros Bros drabbles. Please tell me where you'd like to see these random speculations! Two are death fics, and there are five drabbles total. Should I plop these in Flickerflash or make their own AU drabble-place?

* * *

_**Chapter Six:** Monsters_

* * *

_Well there ain't no rest for the wicked_  
_Money don't grow on trees_  
_I got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed_  
_There ain't nothing in this world for free_  
_Oh no I can't slow down, I can't hold back_  
_Though you know I wish I could_  
_Oh no there ain't no rest for the wicked._  
_Until we close our eyes for good._  
-"Ain't No Rest for the Wicked," Cage the Elephant

* * *

Niko and I were playing Texas Hold 'Em when Robin showed up at our park bench. It was a nice quiet little pocket-park not too far from Robin's car lot, and Niko had called a meeting. Robin leaned over Niko's shoulder, with the briefest brush of body contact. Niko's eyes narrowed but he didn't say a word. Robin raised a brown eyebrow, green eyes bemused.

"Are you playing poker with tarot cards?" he asked, a sly smile playing along his mobile lips.

"Yes." I examined my pile of acorns dolefully. "Guess who's winning."

Niko had a squirrel's dream cache of goodies beside his knee. "Not that you're bad; I just know you too well. Robin, here." He promptly passed Robin his hand. I grimaced. Oh, Robin was no doubt fantastic at this and I was probably going to make a piss-poor showing instead of the decent one I had been making.

Turned out I didn't get totally curb-stomped, but I lost. By a lot. Robin flashed me his winning hand for the umpteenth time and I gave up. "I'm out."

Niko applauded. "You did well."

"Very well for a kid," Robin agreed, laughing. He'd liked the game and had kept the chatter to a minimum, for once. "Now explain to me while we're playing poker. Not that I mind cleaning out all of Caliban's acorns, but I've come to find there's very little you do that's pointless, Niko."

I grinned at Niko. "He's got you there."

Niko spread his hands and shrugged with a little pleased smile, not denying it. "Robin, what do you know about the bar called Moonshine?"

"Can't say I'm familiar with it. Where is it?" Robin lounged on the bench - the puck was like a cat. He could make _anything_ look comfortable. He was smiling at Niko, friendly and clear, but I'd caught the way his gaze had flicked to the sliver of flesh bared between Niko's shirt and jeans when he'd shrugged. Yeah, still crushing _hard_. I wasn't sure if I was disgusted or amused. I mean, sure, freedom of choice and all that, but that was my _brother_. Just no. Niko and sex didn't belong in the same sentence when I was around. Definitely not.

I had no doubt Niko had noticed, and I had no doubt he was using it to his complete advantage. He always did that. Niko explained about the bar, but not about Caleb, passing it off as just a chance to get closer to Cerberus. Well if that was how Niko was going to play it, okay. At least I knew what to say and not say this time around.

"Well, I don't think it's a good idea for you to go, being all human. You'd stick out like a sore thumb." Robin shrugged. "I know you could hold your own, but the odds would be against you from the start, especially if you're looking to find information."

"Hmm. I hadn't thought it would pose that great a difficulty," Niko mused.

Robin nodded, and started to say something else. I tuned him out, not because I was annoyed, but because the guy walking into the park with us didn't smell right. As I started to stand, the bald, burly guy pulled a freakin' _crossbow _from under his light jacket and shot at Robin. He mostly missed - mostly, because Robin had seen the motion and was diving for cover. Niko had already vanished himself behind a birdbath. Me? I pulled out a gun and ducked behind the concrete bench with Robin. Robin was swearing, violently, in Greek.

"I bought these in Rome!" he howled, breaking into English, and drew a short sword from somewhere; it was like Nik, I'd blinked and had missed exactly _where _he'd been hiding it. "Rome! The finest tailor slaved for days! Days!"

The bald guy kept coming at a steady plodding pace, reloading and shooting with every step, crossbow quarrels pinging off the bench. It was only a matter of time before he shot us. He was talking, too, but I wasn't listening. I readied my gun, took a breath, and popped up, propping my arms over the back of the bench to get a steady shot.

Niko broke from cover almost the same moment I did, a slim short-sword in his hands, hauled back to stab. The big guy was quick, too, and he swung the crossbow and pulled the trigger as Niko lunged. Niko was close, too close, and the bolt clipped his head. He dropped, bright blood in his hair.

I found myself standing, heedless of the danger, finger tight on the trigger. The Glock bucked in my hand, and Mr. Clean's black shirt, stretched tight over his chest, opened up into a riddle of scorched holes. I emptied the magazine, all ten bullets packed into a space about the size of a pomegranate. That was damn good shooting, and the burly guy staggered, swayed, and at last crumpled to the dirt, crossbow tumbling from his hand.

Niko sat up and I remembered how to breathe all in a rush. He had a hand pressed to his temple. I vaulted the bench and hurried to see the damage. There was blood darkening his blonde hair, dripping down the side of his face, and he looked a little dazed. I reached up to pull his hand away; a gash started an inch above and to the left of his left eyebrow and trailed off into his hair, growing shallower as it went. I couldn't see how deep it was for the blood; headwounds bleed like all fuck. I knew Niko had a handkerchief in a pocket, and I reached for it. He blinked at me, licked the blood off the corner of his mouth, and asked, "Robin?"

Aw shit, I'd forgotten. I pulled out the handkerchief and pressed it to his head. He winced, then reached up to hold it there himself. He pointed with his free hand, and I turned and went trotting back to Robin obediently.

Robin had levered himself up on the bench, and was examining the bolt that had impaled his leg. I could see both ends. Even as I came closer, Robin grabbed the feathered end of the bolt, twisted, and with as much visible effort as I would have used to break a small dry twig, snapped the end off the titanium bolt. I stopped dead in shock.

"Uh, wow. Remind me not to make you mad," I said, reflexively.

Robin glanced up at me, fine lines of pain around his green eyes. "You've very little chance of that. Do you have another handkerchief, Caliban?"

I patted down my pockets. I did. I shook it out and twisted it into a makeshift bandage, and Robin took a deep breath. Holding it, he smoothly and swiftly slid the bolt out. I passed over the handkerchief and he hastily knotted it over the two bleeding holes in his leg. It'd pierced through the upper muscle of the top of his thigh. Annoying, but not totally crippling or anywhere near fatal. Robin held pressure. The scent of his blood was almost sunny, without the heavy coppery tang of human blood. He looked up at me. "Thank you. How's Niko?"

"I'll live," said the man himself, drifting closer, looking focused again, blood still smeared down his jaw. "I'll need some stitches, but I'll live. Cal, get the cards before they blow away."

The cards? I blinked, and stared down at the bench, the grass. Right, the tarot cards. I looked at the gun in my hand, and traded out the magazines with the extra I always kept in my pocket. I had a clip in my inner pocket for easy reloading of the mag, but right now I had a good seventy-eight cards scattering under a light spring breeze to recapture. Fortunately, the pocket-park was enclosed on three sides by brick walls. I gathered cards and listened to Niko and Robin.

"He kept saying 'he said you'd come.' I suppose he meant you; he did shoot you first."

"Well, yes, but he could just have easily been aiming for Caliban, and missed. I can't think of anyone I've pissed off that badly as of late."

Niko snorted. "Which doesn't mean you haven't. No, I think he was after you, which is very puzzling."

"So it is. Let me see that gash."

I picked up the last card, the Lovers. I turned around and came back, cards in hand, and watched as Niko sank into a crouch in front of Robin. He pulled away the folded handkerchief from his head. Robin's long, quick fingers parted Niko's bloodied hair with a featherlight touch. "You do need stitches. That went to the bone in places."

"I thought so. Not that it's hard to do, on the scalp," replied Niko, somewhat indistinctly.

Robin lifted his hands away and Niko straightened, reaching up to press the handkerchief against the still-bleeding wound. "We both need a little medical attention. There's a clinic not too far from here."

"Cal can patch me up." Well, I could, but my stitches weren't always the best. Niko's were better, fine and precise like a surgeon's. Still, if that was what Niko wanted I wasn't going to argue. Niko looked up at me as I returned with the cards, and offered me a smile. I nodded, tried a smile back. I was feeling a little rattled. The attack had been so sudden and when I'd seen Niko go down so fast...

Killing the guy hadn't bothered me that much. He wasn't the first human I'd killed and he probably wouldn't be the last. When you or your brother's life was in danger, little quibbles like 'human' or 'monster' mattered jack shit. There was only dead or alive, and so far Nik and I had always walked out alive. I intended to keep it that way. Niko gave the cards a quick count, nodded, and stowed them away in a jacket pocket. He got to his feet and looked down at Robin.

"We'll help you to the clinic."

"I think you should come too," Robin, told him, even as he was getting to his feet. "It won't take long."

Niko started to shake his head, then grimaced. "It's fine. Cal and I are used to it. And I want to leave as little of a paper-trail as possible. You know we don't legally exist."

"I think that's a poor reason to dismiss medical help," Robin replied, but shook his head and didn't argue further. Niko beckoned me with a finger, and between the two of us, we got Robin to the clinic without much difficulty at all. We ourselves went home, which was still and quiet this time of day; Lilith was out.

Niko premedicated himself with some painkillers and a few swigs of vodka, and sat very, very still on the floor between my feet as I sat on the couch and got out needle and thread. We did actually have medical-grade supplies. Rafferty had walked up to me in Central Park, dumped a large dufflebag into my hands, and had told me he was going on a trip, and to be careful. In that bag had been all kinds of goodies, from plenty and plenty of gauze to sutures and some serious painkillers and antibiotics. All very useful, though why Rafferty had felt the need to give it to me I wasn't quite sure. Hell, but I wasn't one to look a gift-horse in the mouth.

Niko closed his eyes as I touched gloved fingers to his skin. I tried to be gentle pulling the edges of the wound together, but it still broke open and started to seep blood. I grimaced.

"I'll have to stitch this in layers right here," I reported. "It's gonna leave a nasty scar, Nik."

"It'll add to my dashing good looks," Niko retorted dryly, but there was a flattened quality to his voice that meant he was either half-asleep or just about stoned on his vodka-painkiller cocktail. Maybe both; he was leaning his shoulder heavily against my knee, eyes shut.

I shook my head, picked up the sterile needle, and started working. I'd stitched Niko up quite a few times over the years; his habit of getting into the nastiest, ugliest, dirtiest fights he could find often resulted in gashes or split lips or even knife-wounds. Nothing deterred Niko from a good hard fight, though. The second fists started swinging or chairs got thrown in a bar he was in on it, wading into the thickest part to get himself a piece of the action. He'd gotten into trouble at schools for fighting on the grounds after-hours, or starting fights in the locker-rooms after gym, just to have something to do. Once he had even managed to engineer a room-wide brawl in study hall in the eleventh grade. He was never caught for that one, though. Niko just liked to fight, liked the brutality of it.

By the time I finished, Niko was sitting still in just that way that I knew meant he was half-sleep. So when I tapped his shoulder, he got up on the couch and laid down, and I sat there with his head heavy in my lap and watched him sleep and breathe deep and slow and even. It was actually really damn calming and I caught myself starting to doze off. I tried to wake up, and ended up fishing the tarot deck out of Niko's pocket. I dealt myself a reading on the arm of the couch, three-card-spread. I had to laugh at the reading; Death, the Fool, and the Empress. However I interpreted that it was going to be interesting, applied to our current situation or any aspect of my own life.

The Empress. A flicker of sunshine on red curls passed through my mind and I dismissed it hastily.

I spent a good ten minutes playing solitaire before I just gave in and went to sleep with Niko.

Three days later, as I walked up to the bouncer at the door of a werewolf bar all by myself, I thought of the reading again. I had backup in the form of a tiny microphone plugged into my mp3 player in my pocket; Niko and Robin were playing getaway driver in a large rusty van Robin had dug up somewhere. The injured leg meant Robin wasn't coming to help, but if I needed it I knew Niko would be there. The bouncer of Moonshine was small, petite and probably a buck five of ass-kicking fury. She had inky black hair pulled up in a high ponytail and a pair of arresting yellow-green eyes. She was gorgeous, exotic and strange, and when she scented me she curled her bifurcated upper lip. Apparently half-Auphe wasn't a good smell.

But when I smiled lazily at her and reached for the door, she let me pass. There was no cover charge, lucky me. I paused just inside the door. The inside of the club was smaller than the outside suggested, which told me there were probably a lot of back rooms. Either that, or some walk-in-freezers for easy body disposal. The joint was geared towards gambling, with roulette and blackjack tables, poor lighting, empty makeshift stage, and the floor was sticky. Yuck. Typical bar.

I headed to the bar to get a beer to blend in. I wasn't going to drink it - I hadn't had my rabies shot lately. (Assuming I could get rabies...I'd never been vaccinated in my life.) The bartender made me stop and stare a moment; leaf-green eyes and a riot of curly brown hair. I knew he wasn't Robin. Though the foxy faces were exactly the same, his eyes were dead and cold. Robin was desperately lonely but he was still _alive _on the inside. This puck was poison and insanity, and I could almost taste it when he laid the beer on the bar.

"You seem to have a problem, freak," he sneered, voice like ice. "Should I cure you of it?" He laid a Spanish poniard on the wood beside the bottle of beer, more of an ice-pick than a blade.

"No problem," I answered, evenly, hardly batting a lash at the threat. Though he'd probably kill me without even a reason - his eyes told me that. He needed no reason to go off on a stranger in the club...and he probably owned the place to boot. "Been a while since I've seen a puck, that's all. Hard to believe this city is worthy of your presence." I smiled and lied sweet and sugary.

The toxic ennui in his eyes stirred, muddying with conceit and self-satisfaction. "None is worthy. What can one do?" He tossed a towel over his shoulder and said dismissively,"Take your drink and go, freak. Your presence is an assault to the eyes."

Freak. He knew what I was, and he'd picked up on it faster than Robin. The werewolves had smelled it, but Robin, this guy, and Caleb had simply known. How? Maybe I didn't want to know. Maybe monsters just knew their own - though for a monster Robin was oddly docile. But this asshole? He was a cold-blooded monster, amoral and predatory. He and the Auphe had probably gotten along like lions and leopards, I thought to myself. Happy to feed off one another's kills when they weren't hunting eachother. Instead of being insulted, I took the beer and walked away. I didn't want to give him an excuse. Besides, I was a freak of nature, half a predator and half a sheep.

And all bite.

The bar was half-empty, but it was early yet. I settled at a table in the back and watched the crowds wander in. It seemed Moonshine was primarily a wolf hangout, but apparently all kinds came here. There was a fiery afreet, a few ghouls, a few succubi, and three lamias on what looked like a girl's night out. There were others, creatures I didn't know, monsters I had no names for. Niko would know, and I made notes about them to pass the time. There were wolves in human form and not, laughing, talking, howling, fighting. The scent of musk and alcohol and stale blood had me gritting my teeth. I didn't know if it was unease or a desire to fight that crawled under my skin, skittery and bitter. The last time I'd been in a wolf bar, I'd hired assassins to help me kill George - and Niko, but Niko'd gotten to them first.

Niko, who I very desperately wanted to be sitting beside me. But as it was, I wasn't without intimidation myself; with no jacket I had my guns and my knives on full display. I'd swapped out one Glock for my Desert Eagle, a birthday gift from Nik that packed a hella punch. I had hollowpoints in magnum rounds, too, for some extra heft to make sure that whatever I shot either dropped dead on the spot or at least laid there a while before it thought about getting up again to eat me. Sure, there were no silver bullets to drop a werewolf, but I was hoping these would do the trick if I needed it. This was a werewolf bar, and I had no illusions that I was going to get out of here without getting involved in a fight. Niko had been more hopeful but I sure as hell wasn't banking on it.

I watched the crowds, and everyone took notice when Boaz walked in. With eyes so dark they were black, a thickly muscled body, and buzzed-short hair, he looked rough and ruthless. He had four wolves flanking him, and after he walked in like he owned the damn place, he headed straight for the back, and left one wolf to guard the door. Well, shit.

I left my beer and got up. Time to go throw my weight around.

The wolf at the door lifted a lip in a silent snarl as I sauntered closer. That snarl got tighter with more teeth when he scented me and I smiled my best, cheerful smile at him. "I'm in on this game, bitch."

"Private game, back off," he growled.

"Let me rephrase that." I drew my Glock, got up in his personal space with a quick step, and jammed the muzzle of my gun significantly lower than was vital. "I'm in on this game, now step aside before I _make _you a bitch."

Well, with me threatening to shoot off his balls, he opened the door. Nothing like a threat of neutering to make any man become more cooperative. Especially with a smile that said I was perfectly willing to go right on ahead and do it, too. Free of any charge except my own amusement. I smiled brightly at him and waved after him.

The circle of wolves around the table stared at me. The room was spare, mostly clean, and well-enough lit, though windowless. The print of dogs playing cards that hung on the wall was an oddly appropriate touch. Good to know Robin's look-alike had a sense of humor. I smiled at the gathered wolves. Expressions of revulsion and disgust crossed their faces, but one wolf actually pissed himself. There was one who'd met an Auphe before, and he left in a low hurried slink as I paced forward.

"What do you want?" Boaz growled.

"Deal me in." I stopped in front of the table.

"And why should we? This is a private game," Boaz growled.

"I've heard you're good at poker. I'm better. Deal me in." I grinned widely, brazenly, lying right through my teeth. Did I expect to win? Hell no. Did I expect a fight to come of it? Hell yes.

Boaz sneered. "Disgusting creature."

"Butt-sniffing bitch," I returned, and looked at the wolf to my left. "Get up, I want a chair that hasn't been pissed in recently."

The wolf snarled. I had to make an impression, here, and when I shot him in the kneecap and kicked him out of the chair, he curled up on the floor and made no more protest. I holstered my gun and sat down in the chair that was now mine. I gathered up the scattered cards.

And I was dealt in.

Now that was mildly alarming. I hadn't expected it to work. It made me nervous. I played like hell, though, and made a decent showing. In fact, I had won quite a few hands, enough to keep me in the game as Boaz steadily knocked back the hard stuff, despite an air of control that I would have guessed ruled his personal as well as public life. Alcohol undid even the best-controlled, though, as the more Boaz drank the looser his lips became and the more his card-playing deteriorated. I listened and played and watched the alcohol levels go down.

At last he slammed his glass down.

"That two-headed son of a bitch."

The human wolf to the left bunched slightly, ears twitching with unexpected flexibility. Apparently this was a familiar and potentially explosive refrain. "He's shit all right, boss. We seen him," he offered in a placating tone.

Boaz was in no mood to be soothed. "Misshapen thing, he's no good for the pack. No good for the hunt. He should've been culled. Culled a long time ago."

Heads around the table nodded, some human, some shaggy. "Culled."

"He's deformed, weak, _wrong_," Boaz growled.

The heads nodded again. "Deformed." "Wrong." No-one wanted to repeat _weak_. They seemed sure that while Cerberus was many things, disturbing things, weak wasn't one of them. As much as Boaz wanted it to be different, the telling omission said Cerberus was strong, cunning, and a force to be reckoned with. And that was what was eating at Boaz so bad.

"He's an aberration." Boaz glared balefully at me. "An aberration who sends spies!" Boaz roared.

Whoops. That was my cue to get the fuck out. Five minutes ago.

I kicked my chair over backwards as the wolves on either side lunged for me; one caught a steel boot-toe in the teeth as I rolled free. I came up with a gun in either hand. In this small room I'd only get a few shots off before it became a melee. I chose Boaz as the deadliest flavor of the month, used the Glock to nail a balding wolf between the eyes, and leveled my Desert Eagle at Boaz. I got off one shot before he flipped the whole goddamn table at me, and I had to duck. Well, this was not going to end very well, as there were half a dozen of them and only one of me. Don't get me wrong, I'm badass, but numbers can make a difference even to the most badass.

I shot two more wolves, one none-fatally, before Boaz descended, snapping, already turned into a wolf roughly half again the size of a Shetland pony (and those are some mean motherfuckers). His paws hit my shoulders and I went down to the floor, slavering jaws headed for my throat. Lacking anything else, I rammed my arm up into his mouth, right up against the back molars where he couldn't get quite enough leverage to break my arm in two. It hurt like a _bitch _and I was seeing black spots but I wedged the Desert Eagle behind his elbow, angled it into his ribcage, and held the trigger down. Whether I pierced his lungs, hit his heart, or shredded some major vessels, hopefully he'd die before he ruined my arm or anything else important. The recoil of the Eagle at that angle was gonna wreck my wrist but if I lived I wouldn't give a damn.

The impact at least made Boaz flinch, and I tried to get a knee up into his gut to get him the hell off.

A silvery blade whistled through the air and sank deep into Boaz's flank. The wolf howled, and I snatched my arm free as he whirled. Niko darted away, flung another wolf between them, and I sat up, drew bead, and shot Boaz in the back of the skull. The front of his face sprayed red and grey and he went down. I shot two more wolves. Niko beheaded another, katana flashing.

"Go!" Niko barked. I shoved my Glock into its holster, shot to my feet, and bolted. I was light-headed, shocky from the pain, but I could always run, and run I did. The smell of blood brought heads around faster than the fight had, and I shot one of the lamia that started into my path. Fuck that noise. I heard the scrape of chairs behind me; I wasn't worried. They might be behind me, but Niko was behind them, and that wasn't a fair fight in anyone's book.

Robin had the van pulled up on the curb with a reckless disregard for the life and limb of your average pedestrian. The sliding door was wide open and the engine running. I scrambled in, and got ready to slam the door shut. Niko was probably going to be moving at top speed, and I glanced at Robin. "Get ready to floor it."

Niko came through the door so fast I half-expected a sonic boom to follow. I slammed the door shut as soon as I saw him coming in; something large and heavy slammed into the van as the tires squealed and Robin floored it. I stumbled back and dropped to the floor, head smacking against the back doors. Niko had wedged himself into the back corner, and he reached out and grabbed my shoulder. It helped. Robin did a damn good imitation of Niko's driving until we got out onto the highway. Niko untangled himself and hissed at the state of my arm.

"Oh Cal, I hope that's not broken." He started to help me hold pressure on the bleeding. I couldn't help the sharp whine that broke from my throat at the new flare of pain, my vision fading white at the edges. Niko muttered and handled my arm as gently as possible.

"Nik, tell me you saw that puck too," I muttered, trying to not think about the pain. Damn impossible but if I focused on it entirely I was going to do something embarrassing like scream or pass out. My voice was thin and strained. "I wasn't hallucinating him."

"The bartender? I saw him in passing," Niko admitted, calm and steady, peeling back strips of my shredded shirt.

"There was a puck?" Robin tossed back, astonished. "Who?"

"The crazy bastard with the poniard he threatened to put in my throat," I answered, exasperated. Could I tell them apart? Not really. "The one who smelled ancient as fuck and crazier than a basket full of blue footed boobies. That give you a hint?"

"Fuck," said Robin. I guess it did. "You can smell how old I am?"

"Not in years, just that you're old. Like - nnngh, Nik! - like the redwoods out in California." Niko had just pulled a strip of fabric _out of my arm _but it was hurting less and I was shaking. Shock and bloodloss, always my favorite combination.

"Well, that's interesting," Robin declared, bewildered. "I've rarely been compared to a tree before."

Niko grunted. "Talk is fine, Robin, but Cal is losing a lot of blood, so if you could find it in you to drive faster, I'd appreciate it." His tone was sharp as a dagger, despite the polite words. He was worried, and if he was worried, so was I. I tried to get a better look at the damage, but it was too dark, and the blood was black in the blackness, hot and slick down my arm, dripping chilled off my fingers. It hurt, from my shoulder to my fingertips, but it was all blurred and distant from the shock.

Robin drove faster.


	7. Chapter Seven: Bindings

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series.

I do not own the song lyrics used to start this piece! The Japanese pop song used here was the ending theme for the first Fullmetal Alchemist series. The lyrics are really run and interesting, as Japanese pop tends to be.

A brief note on Niko's hair: the length here can be described as "classic," while Cal's hair is at his shoulder-blades (alternatively, "bra-strap-length"). Googling for pictures of "classic length hair" reveals some fun fun pictures and really drives home just how long Niko's hair really is, and _how much of it_ there is.

I could seriously ramble about Niko's hair all day long. I'll shut up now. (No I'm not obsessed, why on earth would you ask me such a thing?)

Thanks to halesgirl101 for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to Comuterale, Kin-outcast1, Obi the Kid, and LeighAnnWallace for reviewing!

* * *

_**Chapter Seven:** Bindings_

* * *

_Itsumo no shisen ni kimi ga ite kokyuu ga dekiru_  
_Boku ni totte nara, sore dake de_  
_Mou juubun na hazu na no ni_

_Chippoke na boku wa kurikaesu ayamachi bakari_  
_Dorehodo tsuyosa wo te ni shitara_  
_Nani mo kizutsukezu sumu no?_

_Mayowazu ni, kono ai wo shinji ikiteyuku_  
_Fusagaranu kizuguchi mo gyu'tto dakishimete_

_Futari wa aruki-tsuzukeru, ato ni wa modorenai kara_  
_Ima demo kono mune no oku, kesenai tsumi wa itamu kedo_  
_DARLING_  
-"Kesenai Tsumi," Nana Kitade

* * *

_With you in my usual sight,_  
_I can breathe_  
_Even though that's already plenty enough to me_

_The petty me does nothing but repeat mistakes_  
_How strong a strength do I need to have_  
_So that nothing will get hurt?_

_Without hesitation, I believe in this love and live on_  
_I'll tightly embrace your unbandaged wound_

_And together we'll keep on walking, because we can't go back_  
_Even now, the inerasable sin deep in my chest hurts, but-_  
_Darling_  
-"Unerasable Sin," Nana Kitade

* * *

Niko put some fifty stitches into my arm, to match the twenty I'd given him in his scalp. Drowsy on the couch, I watched him work, head bent, silvery needle dipping into flesh and rising back out. I was nicely drugged on the good stuff; since Rafferty had given an entire bag to me and not to Niko, we'd figured he wouldn't kill me with drugs so they were probably safe to take. I was feeling drugged and floaty and vaguely like I couldn't have gotten up even if I needed to, which was actually pretty terrifying. But Niko was here, and his claymore rested across his lap.

Shirtless, I had fresh bruising on my stomach and knees, as well as down my back. But I only had the bite-marks for actual bleeding wounds. Go me. And the bite was deep, but with surprisingly little damage all things considered. Niko stitched me up, layer-by-layer, and I felt almost hypnotized by the flashing of the needle, the patient blankness of Niko's face, the glitter of his hair under the light. Niko breathed deep and even and steady. I breathed with him in long slow waves and felt the world clouded and fuzzy and distant. My arm was a mass of bruising around the bites and rested on an ice-pack. Niko wasn't even humming, focused and silent.

I dozed, sorta, dreaming of Niko and the stitches, waking to find he was still working, and drifting off again. I woke up when Niko laid my arm and the icepacks over my chest. The lights were off and his hands were ungloved. He bent in the dim light and kissed my forehead, a dry brush of chapped lips. I wanted to say something, but I couldn't remember what it was and I couldn't make it come out, too sleepy and drug-hazed. I drifted off into the blackness of jumbled dreams. I_ couldn't_ quite get up or wake up but a few times I thought I heard Niko saying my name.

I woke up to full afternoon sunshine in my face, and Niko talking quietly on his cell-phone, sitting in the lotus position in the middle of the floor. His bare feet were upturned on his knees, his spine ramrod straight, and his hair loose around his shoulders like a cowl. It went straight to the floor in a sheet of golden silk, heavy and thick. He didn't look even remotely feminine; he looked like a drawing of a young Greek god, barechested and posed still as a statue, listening to whoever was on the other end of the line. When I got up on my elbows he looked at me briefly, grey eyes calm and steady. He did not smile, only listened; watching Niko talk on the phone was an exercise in pure creepy. His face never changed to match the emotions in his voice.

"Yessir," he said, at last. He was talking to his real boss, then, at the antique car place. He was the only one Niko ever called 'sir.' "I understand, sir. I'll have the job done by tomorrow. Thank you, sir."

Niko snapped his phone shut and sighed, blank face taking on a wry curl of the mouth. "A scheduled job is a pain to keep," he declared. "How're you feeling?"

My mouth felt full of cotton. "Nnn. Ow." I wasn't exactly hungover - I didn't get hangovers. But I felt fuzzy and weird. "Nik, I don't like drugs. My head feels funny."

"Duly noted." Niko unfolded himself in a single flowing motion, his hair shining around him like an aura. I laid back and closed my eyes as he padded silently across the floor and laid a hand over my forehead. No fever, well, of course not. I never ran fevers, not really. Only once or twice, like when I'd been poisoned by that one weird snake-cat-bird thing down in Miami. Who knew ancient Aztec gods took vacations in Miami? So it probably hadn't really been Quetzalcoatl, but it had damn sure looked like it - I'd found a picture in one of Niko's books after.

"Think you could eat?" Niko asked.

"I could eat a whole cow," I answered back. My stomach felt like an empty hollow pit. But I felt tired, not rested, and bruised all over in a low ache.

"Lacking the appropriate livestock, you'll have to make due with bacon and eggs." Niko chuckled a little. He pushed his hair back behind an ear, an automatic gesture I'd seen thousands of times. "I tried to wake you up last night. Do you remember what you were dreaming about?"

Just like that, the fuzzy-vague feeling went cold and I shuddered. Niko saw it and sat on the edge of the couch, hand closing over mine. "Yeah. You...you were there and you were dead and the Auphe were having a hunt and we ran down George and Robin and ate them and Promise was the queen." I swallowed against the bitter taste in the back of my throat. "I called the hunt, and you kept calling me, but I couldn't wake up."

Niko blinked, just once. "Think it was the pills?"

"No, dream was pretty standard, not waking up was the pills," I told him. I'd never talked much about my dreams. Pretty easy to see why: Stephen King had nothing on me. My brain was a dark sub-basement of gothic horror and slasher gore, a monster's drive to hunt haunted by humanity's troubling sense of morality. People didn't eat people, but hell, I wasn't people. I was a monster. I still balked at the idea of _eating_ anyone, though.

To his credit, Niko only mildly discomfited. "Right. So we must weigh the benefits of sleeping a full night versus your mental health."

"I'll take what's left of my sanity, thanks." At least I hadn't been tearing out Niko's throat. I'd had a few of those dreams and it's really kinda mind-rattling to wake up in the same bed with your brother that you just killed in your nightmare. What that said about my subconscious, I didn't really care to know. Aside from fucked up as hell. That I already knew.

"Very well. Back to willow tea and aspirin, then," Niko sighed. He knew they were both more placebos than anything; neither did shit with me.

"I'll take breakfast instead. I'm hungry." I looked down at my bruised and stitched arm. Niko had left it uncovered and I could hardly tell what was dried blood and what was bruising. "I think I need to wash this."

"Carefully," Niko admonished, and got to his feet. A flip of his head caused most of his hair to slide back behind his shoulders; it was a thick heavy mass with a few waving strands loose, catching the light in little glittering shards. He moved back to where he'd been sitting and knelt to retrieve his brush from the floor. His hair parted along his spine and slid over his bowed shoulders; with those quick, automatic flicks of his head he sent it back where it belonged as he straightened. He pulled it all over one shoulder and started brushing it again.

I swung my bare feet to the floor and sat there for a while, staring at my bony toes splayed on the cheap industrial carpet. I felt a little dizzy but not so bad I wasn't going to get up and shower. So I got up. Niko had just started to separate his hair into three thick sections. I crossed the distance between us and crouched. His hands stilled.

I reached out and took the sections from him. Niko let his hands fall away and I tested the dexterity of my wounded arm. Not too bad, honestly, but damn, almost three feet of a braid was long. I shook my hands out after. "Damn, that takes too long."

"Which is why my hair is longer than yours," Niko returned, patiently. I touched a long scar down his shoulderblade, and he was still as stone. "We should cut yours soon."

"Yeah." I moved away. "I'm going to wash."

Niko made breakfast, I got clean, and we discussed what we had learned last night. Which was mainly that old Boaz had either been freakishly good at guessing or our hand had been tipped big time. Niko and I were leaning towards the latter. As for who, though, that was up for so much debate we didn't even start to try. Niko just shook his head and went to work. I did some chores, did some stretching, and went to sunbathe my arm. Hell, laugh if you like, but it helped. At first it burned all along the scabbing, but then it steadied into a low tidal ache and that I could ignore. Breathe through it and relax. It was way too much damn time to think. Even with 7 Year Bitch blasting through my headphones. I hated being injured like this. Bruises I could handle, I could push through it. I was _used_ to bruises. I always had them, even when Niko was in a good mood and hadn't hit me for a long time. Even then I still had old bruises healing up, fragile places that bruised again if I knocked up against something hard.

I reached up and rubbed the back of my neck, feeling the scattered pin-pricks of bruising along my nape, under my ponytail. Niko's little affectionate reminders to stay in line, stay aware, stay focused. Bruises always had a purpose, with Niko. Nothing he did was senseless, as Robin had said. And that...that I could take. Sophia's random violence, the way she'd hit either of us for no real reason, that I hadn't been able to stand. That had hurt, that had made me so damn angry and sick. But Niko never touched me without a reason. I understood that. I knew where I stood with it, too. Some of the reasons might be stupid, sure, and I'd call his ass on them, but they were still_ reasons_.

Niko was steady, a constant in my life. His temper was predictable. Even the way he reacted to me...I'd not expected him to flip his shit over my dream, and he hadn't. He knew I didn't like to talk about them but this time...I hadn't thrown up or even started shaking. Just felt disgusted by the idea, a little nauseated. That was a big goddamn step, really. Maybe Niko was right. Maybe I was getting better. Like I'd told him, dreaming about the hunts wasn't anything new. Nope. I'd always dreamed about the hunts, ever since I'd come back from Tumulus. They'd taught me to be an Auphe, my monster family, and that hadn't just been gating. They'd taught me their language, the culture, and had taken me on the hunts. I hadn't just languished in the dark dark caves underground, nope, they'd dragged me out to the hunts. What did the Auphe hunt? Everything under the sun.

I realized why I'd dreamed about Promise as a queen. The Auphe didn't have queens or rulers. They lived alone and only ran in groups to hunt or when they whelped, which wasn't that often these days. Auphe spawned slowly. But the Auphe had stories, and they'd told them to me, weaning me on violence and blood and the twisting burning sounds of their own tongue. I'd learned them, forgotten them, and after a moment of wary hesitation, I started picking at the forgotten thread of the story.

It occurred to me this was a project Niko would like. He'd learned plenty of "elf" stories from the human side, trying to sort out what the Auphe were; hearing the same tales from the "elf" side of things? Some were the same. Some I'd never heard before. All tended towards the same gory endings, at least. Spoilers: the human never wins. I didn't know if I was going to end up triggering myself or not, doing this, but I guessed I'd never know until I tried.

I did.

It wasn't a very bad episode, all things considered. I curled up with one of Niko's shirts for about an hour. And then, I went for a walk. I found a bench to sit on in a busy square and watched the people be people. I felt like I needed to remember that, after spending so long soaked in monster memories. Sure, there were monsters loose in the city too, but there were mostly _people_, going around doing people things, talking laughing and moving, not worrying about being hunted or hunting. I didn't feel like I belonged, no. I never had. But it was nice, actually, to see people not terrified out of their wits.

I lost track of time, mind pleasantly blank.

My cell phone rang, startling me back into the real world. I fished it out of my pocket and answered. It was Nik, of course. Nobody else really ever called me. "Hey Nik."

"Cal." I heard him catch his breath, stop before he spoke. Whoops. I'd been out too late, I realized. He was home already. "How soon will you be home?"

"Twenty minutes," I guessed, getting to my feet. "Sorry. I..."

"Supper will be ready when you get here. Don't worry about it." Niko's voice was calm, easy. "Be careful."

"I will," I promised, and he hung up. I stared around the darkening square, and started for home. I hadn't meant to stay out so late. From the sounds of it I'd worried Niko, but I'd see if that had made him mad or not. I didn't think it had but I'd see.

Lilith was pleasantly not home. Niko was and he'd made spaghetti. He met me with a slice of garlic bread in hand, and offered a smile as well. "Just needed out?"

"Yeah...sorry, I didn't leave a note. I forgot." I shrugged out of my jacket and too the toasty slice of bread. Niko shrugged a little and went back to cooking. Crunching the bread, I followed. As I'd thought, he wasn't mad. I'd just worried him a little. I leaned on the counter and watched him stir the spaghetti sauce.

"I got offered another job today," Niko said, suddenly. "An extra kind of job."

"Really? If this keeps up we'll need another partner," I pointed out. "You taking it?"

"Maybe." Niko turned the stove off and turned to me. "Georgina King has been kidnapped. Her mother wants me to find her."

I couldn't have been more surprised if Niko had pulled a top-hat out of his pocket and started dancing the can-can. I stopped chewing and stared at him, and something like sickness crawled over my skin at George's name. _What you've done, monster._ I remembered what I'd done. And I'd seen the healing scars on her face. The memory flash of her red hair in the sunlight had me gagging on reflex.

Niko caught my upper arm and pulled me towards the sink. I leaned back against the pull, swallowed the chewed mouthful of garlic bread. It tasted like ashes, bitter and gritty. "No. I...s'okay." I felt shaken but not about to flip the fuck out just yet. "You...how?"

"Her mother has my number. After everything that happened." Niko hedged around Everything neatly, though I remembered. I had set werewolves on George's family, tortured her, tried to kill her, and Niko had come to save the day. Come to think of it, how had he even known to come there? What had led him to George's house just in time? I didn't know and I knew I probably wouldn't ever ask. I didn't think I could stand it. I set the half-eaten slice of bread down on the counter and rubbed at my face. Niko's hand on my arm tightened briefly. "Okay?" he asked.

I took a deep breath, let it out, and did it again. Niko breathed with me, quietly. "Okay," I said, after a few repetitions. "Okay. You taking the job?"

Just a job.

"I may." Niko looked at me solemnly, then grabbed my left hand and squeezed. I felt the tension in the burn scars - a subtle reminder from him. I took a deeper breath, let it out. I was shaking, a little, and I felt pretty pale. "I am often against dividing our resources, but in this case, I think it's prudent."

Relief and guilt and I sagged against the counter, oozed slowly to sit on the floor. Niko went down with me, and we sat there on the cheap industrial carpet. I breathed, and Niko waited patiently, tracing the scars beneath the bandaging on my hand. I wasn't surprised that he knew the exact path of each burn-scar: he'd helped me care for them, after all. Each touch was a reminder. Not my fault, he said with each silent press of that single finger. He told me that, but I still wasn't sure I believed it.

"Okay?" he asked, finally.

I thought about it. "Yeah." Shaken, yes. But not about to flip out.

Niko got to his feet, grimacing as his left knee popped. He held his hand out, and pulled me up too. The food was still warm, and we ate. I told Niko about my people-watching, because I didn't much like the silence right now. Niko listened obligingly, and told me about his day at work and the comedy of errors that had resulted in the wrong car being given to the wrong customer. It was pretty funny. Niko was a great story teller - all the best liars are. Robin was a great example of that, too. Me, I was passable.

I worked tonight, down at the bar. It didn't exactly help; I got hit full in the face with a beer-bottle and had to spend ten minutes in the employee bathroom trying not to hyperventilate over it, which apparently freaked my new boss out pretty bad. He hovered and kept shuttling me off to serve the quieter patrons. Now on the one hand I appreciated that. On the other, I was just plain ticked off by it. I didn't need to be coddled by some _stranger_. I could take of myself when Niko wasn't around to do it. He'd made sure I could. But with the way all my customers kept looking at me, I figured I was still pretty pale. I felt that way, pale and rattled. I didn't feel much at ease which was damn disappointing 'cause I'd had such a good time last time. But I just wanted to...I dunno, make it all stop and go away. I mean, hell, I was never normal, but I hated feeling triggery and inches away from a meltdown.

One of the customers looked at me with dark eyes, and raised his glass to me. "Makes me wonder," he said, so quietly I almost didn't hear him, "When the children have eyes like my brothers on the battlefield, if this country is worth defending."

I bristled a little. "I'm not a child," I snapped back.

He smiled, and something about the calm reminded me of Niko. Controlled. He smelled faintly like desert sand, heated metal, and old blood. "No. You're right. I'm sorry."

Irritation made me want to stalk off. Niko's constant drilling of manners made me nod instead, acknowledging the apology. Didn't mean I wasn't still pissed.

It surprised me that when he left, he left a hell of a tip for me. It was a good night. Most of my customers tipped. Hell, even if it was pity-money, I'd take it. Niko and I needed the income.

I didn't ride the subway for long, busy even in the wee early hours of the morning. I got off and walked for a good long way, hands in my coat pockets, cheeks burning in the chill of the spring night. I felt...calmer now, but it was the tired-dead-dull calm I hated so much. The kind that said I was mentally pretty exhausted. It was a tossup on whether or not I'd actually sleep, though. Probably not. But that was okay, really, that was normal and I was used to it.

I paused, waiting for the crossing light to change, and my gaze caught on something pale on a rooftop above.

Funny what can get you - that single glimpse made my gut clench and my heart pound, fingertips tingling to an adrenaline rush.

_Auphe_ said every instinct, and I didn't look again.

Maybe that sounds stupid, but I didn't want to know for sure. I didn't want to see the monsters that had been hounding me all my life. Not tonight.

I put my head down and kept walking, expecting every moment to feel barbed claws on the back of my neck. Every moment, and the walk took an eternity in the chill, until I climbed up the apartment fire escape and jimmied open the window. Niko sat up briefly, saw it was me, and went back to sleep. I shut the window and stood in the warmth and the dim street-lamp light, watching the shadows and Niko sleeping. It was never wholly dark in New York, not ever, and that thought made something deep in my head wake with a wanting cry. I remembered a fearless childhood night in the country, in the utter darkness of night under a blue-velvet sky studded with fever-bright stars.

The Auphe liked the wild darkness of night best.

I went and took a shower. I wasn't sure how I felt now - the dull calm was gone, and in its place was a jumble of things, a wordless longing I didn't know how to name, brief flashes of the fear of the Auphe, and a bewildering sense of peace.

I went and I sat on Niko's feet.

He roused with a disgruntled, warning mutter. But when I didn't move again, he sat up on his elbows, staring at me in the dark. My wet hair was soaking through my shirt, dripping cold into my lap. With a questioning noise, Niko reached out a hand to me. I took it, and laced our fingers together. His smell was all around me, and the warm calloused hand in mine was a promise to never let go of me. With Niko I had my place. I belonged beside him always. He loved me.

I took a deep breath. I didn't know what to say, and what popped out of my mouth was pure impulse.

"Let me tell you the story of Tam Lin."

We both knew the ancient Scottish tale, the old poem about true love, elven enchantment, and why sex with strange men wasn't a good idea. We both knew it, but I knew a version of Niko had never heard. A version I didn't think any other human in the world had ever heard. Until me.

With another steady breath, I closed my eyes and remembered. My voice shifted, and concentrating in the dark I could really_ feel_ the different strain in my throat as I began the old story, speaking in Auphe. It was a language like acid-etched broken glass, too harsh for a human voice, with a cadence like dripping blood and tortured screams. The rhythm of the story, told exactly, exactly the same way for thousands of years was almost poetic. Words had changed and the language had begun to shift, as they always did, and it occurred in a small place in the back of my mind to draw parallels between human history and the Auphe. Even creatures that lived practically forever changed. Who had influenced who? It was hard to tell, sometimes; the hunter or the hunted.

I told the story exactly as it had been told to me, and Niko sat quietly in the dark small hours of the night and listened.

He didn't even say a word when I started to cry as I talked.

I needed that. I knew he accepted me, but somehow I'd _needed_ that and even if it was like tearing something open, even if it hurt...

It felt good.

I fell asleep as the sun rose, still holding Niko's hand.


	8. Chapter Eight: Traitors

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used to start this piece!

Warning for Niko being Utterly Terrifying.

Thanks to Kin-outcast1 for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to halesgirl101, Comuterale, and LeighAnnWallace for their reviews!

Halesgirl101 asked a question, so ya'll get a bonus Q&A from Cal and Niko at the bottom.

Sorry about the late chapter. Life happened!

* * *

_**Chapter Eight:** Traitors_

* * *

_Are you ugly? A liar like me?_  
_A user, a lost soul? Someone you don't know_  
_Money, it's no cure, a sickness so pure_  
_Are you like me? Are you ugly?_  
-"Ugly," The Exxies

* * *

Our friend the albino wolf found as as Niko and I were walking home from dinner. I say friend. He wasn't exactly, but he was informative. Extremely helpful.

We hadn't been looking to find him, though we had been discussing seeing Caleb and collecting the last half of our monies owed. Niko had gone to work today, and I'd done a lot of napping between chores. I'd really been pretty exhausted, apparently. I'd decided that I felt really damn sorry for narcoleptics; falling asleep every few hours or so was not my idea of fun. Especially when I kept having dreams so bizarre I'd tried to get Niko to tell me what the hell he'd slipped into my coffee that morning. He'd denied anything at all, but I half-suspected he'd put another pain pill in there. Or, you know, LSD. Where he'd get that, I had no clue, but I didn't doubt if he'd wanted it Niko could have dug it up somewhere. He did that - no matter how bizarre was the thing wanted, he usually had it in a coat pocket. Damn creepy at times, but hella useful.

So we'd met for dinner, had some damn fine Chinese, and were talking business on our way home, when business stepped out of a dark alley in front of us.

I was halfway to shooting the problem before I realized it was the wolf. And then I still was halfway to shooting him.

Niko put a hand on my wrist. "How convenient. We need to speak with you."

The grin old Snowball there gave us was not nice. Or friendly. Also very fangly. "Caleb...sends...message," he grated out, the words broken and chewed through finger-thick fangs.

Niko nodded, a look of dismayed resignation on his face. He gestured for the wolf to move back into the alley; the long slim rapier that suddenly appeared in his hand made it a demand, not a request. Our albino friend - still using that term loosely - headed back into the shadows after only a moment's hesitation. I had no idea why Niko was carrying a rapier. I hadn't even known he'd _owned_ one. But what I did know was he was likely to be as deadly with it as he was with any other weapon he owned.

I still kept my gun in hand and pointed at the wolf, slipping deeper into the alley's shadows to make any passers-by less likely to flip the fuck out and call the cops on us.

Niko tapped the rapier's blade against his knee. "Talk." He put his own growl in it, chest-deep, a _command_ with a threat behind it.

So we'd thought there had been a spy in Cerberus's ranks to betray us to Boaz. Well, that wasn't exactly true. There was a spy, and it was Caleb. He wasn't working for Cerberus, and he'd tipped us off to Boaz. Caleb was looking for someone to go up against Cerberus, and he'd had to test his potential thieves. Yup, thieves; he wanted us to steal something from Cerberus. What was it?

A goddamn familiar looking little circlet.

Our albino friend, whose name was Flay, had a full-colour sketch for us. Same damn thing the Lucchese family of the Italian Mob wanted us to find.

Hella coincidence.

What a fuckin' trap. Niko only paled faintly. I tried to shoot Flay in the kneecaps. Niko cuffed me upside the head and Flay dodged. Damn my luck.

Flay had another few salient points of information. He worked directly for Cerberus. He could get me an in with the Big Dog himself. And...Caleb had George. Who he would trade to Niko for the circlet. Very mercenary. A job for a job. From the way Flay kept looking to Niko, we'd done our job - Caleb assumed Niko was the one in total control and I hadn't even been offered anything. Apparently Flay and I were in the same boat. Flunkies with muscle. Too bad for Caleb, I had a brain and I was using it. And I was thinking that getting the hell outta Dodge was sounding like such a fucking good idea.

Niko, however, had other plans.

The tip of his tongue wet his lower lip.

That was the only warning Flay had before Niko had him flat on the pavement, an iron hand around his throat and the rapier an inch deep in the flesh of his neck. There was a cold fire in Niko's eyes, and a death's head grin stretching his lips. I knew that look; Niko had his best fun wearing that smile.

Flay would recognize it as a predator's grin, a monster's soundless laugh.

"Let's have a little chat, Flay. I'm going to tell you exactly how this is going to go down. You're going to tell me the absolute truth. And if you lie, oh if you lie, I'll sever your spinal cord and drop you off at The Indigo Wendigo. It's Wolf Night tonight, Flay, and I'm sure your brothers will enjoy taking you apart in strips."

Niko's voice was velvet-soft, a promise of pain, a low warning more terrifying than any shout. I shivered, a chill running over me. This was Niko at his worst, at his ugliest, and I think I would have rather faced the Auphe than been in Flay's position right now. From the bitter scent of wolf urine, Flay would rather be anywhere else than here. Niko chuckled, a bright, captivated sound, grey eyes cold as ice and bright as a flame.

Flay ended up missing a few tiny strips of skin around his throat, but his story remained the same, save for a very interesting pair of details. Flay was a traitor, but an ambitious one - he was also one working under Caleb by duress. Not that Niko had any sympathy for that. I was actually starting to feel bad for the wolf - nobody can be paid or threatened enough to deal with Niko. Flay was definitely not getting paid or threatened enough. Niko wasn't overly inclined to mercy, but he knew a brilliant opportunity when he saw one. And with Flay flat on his back and staring up at a fate worse than death, Niko began to outline his plan.

The very next day, Flay and I were the very best of buddies, and he was going to introduce me to Cerberus as a new potential thug-for-hire, the great slayer of Boaz, a bloodthirsty mercenary monster.

Niko had said he'd have a nice explanation for my other boss. I hoped it was one that let me keep that job. Not that I didn't doubt Niko's powers of persuasion, but...yeah. This whole situation was a clusterfuck of such epic proportions I was still surprised Niko hadn't packed us both up for an impromptu spring break in Panama City. (Lovely this time of year, hot college chicks in skimpy bikinis.) Instead, I was walking into an opulent office. This place was a palace. Cerberus had plenty of money, influence, and even the start of a harem - a succubus lounging on a couch on the far wall, wearing pretty much nothing but her own mother-of-pearl scales and midnight-blue and storm-cloud-silver hair.

Then I saw Cerberus, and promptly forgot about the snake.

Holy fuck.

Holy flying fuck.

Now, I'd seen some really Weird Shit in my life. Niko and I knew a voodoo priestess in Louisiana, I'd been to the underground market in San Francisco, Niko was good friends with a Navajo _Hatalii,_ and we'd both spent Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts. I had seen lots of bizarre, strange, and outright creepy. Cerberus did not take the cake, but he was on the top ten of the Weird Shit list.

The name should have tipped me off. Cerberus, the many-headed guard dog of the Greek Underworld.

Cerberus only had two heads, but that was just one too many in my book.

"Flay says that-" one began

"You wish to join us," the other finished.

I hoped they didn't do that a lot. It was creepy as fuck. Like a cutesy gum commercial gone horrifically wrong. There was no pleasure here to be doubled, that was for damn sure. After a hesitation at the door - one the wolf was no doubt used to - I stalked forward and took one of the leather chairs in front of the car-sized desk. I slouched at my ease, not minding that both guns and knives showed as I did so. I tried a smile - it fit better than I'd thought it might. "What better place for someone like me? I've heard you look past differences, past" -my lips curled with a bitter twist- "bad breeding."

I was cool, calm, and completely undisturbed. I was fucking crazy for doing this and if I got out alive Niko's entire tea stash was getting liberally dusted with cayenne pepper. I'd burn CDs of that awful drippy bubble-gum pop and that horrid flavor of soprano rock and label them all exactly like his heavy metal CDs and swap out his whole collection and hide it in Robin's office. Shit.

One of Cerberus's heads stared fixedly at me with slanted brown eyes that flared molten gold as the other turned to address the guard at the door. "Find Orrin. He's overdue and I want a report." The voice was cold an utterly emotionless, just like the eyes. It was unusual for a wolf. They usually wore every emotion rampant on their sleeves for all to see. The difference in Cerberus was startling. But again, I was used to that kind of control - Niko was perfectly capable of the same. It only meant Cerberus, like Niko, was dangerous as hell.

The fact that he had two sets of jaws to eat me with was not raising any issues - it was just seeing two heads over unnaturally broad shoulders. He at least only had two arms and the usual number of legs. I did wonder how far down the division went, though... A deformity like Cerberus shouldn't have been tolerated in wolf society - they rooted out all signs of weakness, deformity, or oddness, especially when they were of the old breeding. Cerberus was completely human, or completely wolf at will. I wasn't looking forward to seeing the wolf form, either. I didn't know how he'd survived, but to have made it this far, he had to be ruthless as all hell. Thick but immaculately manicured nails tapped the desk in a vaguely familiar rhythm. Then it hit me: _Peter and the Wolf._ Jesus, this guy was something else.

"Bad breeding indeed." Identical broad noses flared to gather my scent. "A foul, disgusting joining."

The one on the right had spoken first, followed by the one on the left. For the sake of my sanity I was either going to have to rename the heads mentally or just think of them as one creature, as Cerberus seemed to. Niko would just _love_ to be in here and ask Cerberus all kind of psychology- and biology-related questions, I was sure, but that was Niko. I was just weirded out.

"Foul and disgusting, that's me," I agreed, casually, crossing my legs at the ankle. "But loyal, if I like the price. I haven't found anything yet I can't take down." I smiled, and it was my very best copy of Niko's death's head grin on the hunt. "And I'm mean."

The cherry on top, that was, because on wolf terms, it meant only one thing. I played with my food. Killing was business with the Kin, but torture was an _art_ among them. I didn't care for it, but I'd seen Niko in action often enough to be very, very good at it. Sure, I'd learned it from the Auphe, too, but I'd learned it first from Niko. And once you've seen it that young, you can't ever forget that kind of thing.

"Ah, is that so?" The nails stopped tapping, fingers stilled. Dark eyes looked me over again. "Boaz."

"A bad poker player," I snorted. "And a worse loser." I'd no doubt tales of Boaz's death had spread far and wide, and Flay wasn't the only one who'd whispered it in Cerberus's ears.

"He plays less now that he rots in a Jersey pet cemetery." There were identical cold grins. Then, less-than-casual, "I hear there was a human there who fought as well. Blonde, with a sword." The right head was still with me. The left had let his grin disappear and had a brooding, half-lidded gaze fixed on me. Fixed on me hard.

I sneered. "I thought he was a bouncer. A puck will hire anything." Well, it wasn't true, but hey, if I was misinformed and not all that bright, it was better than being found out as a liar. I had the feeling Cerberus didn't take too well to liars. Hell, a bad hair day probably resulted in bodies far and wide. Not a wonder Flay wanted out from under this monster's paws. Flay wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, and he had to screw up sometime. And screwing up under Cerberus ended with you coming down with a bad case of fatality, I was figuring.

Why was I doing this again?

Right, because Niko thought I could pull it off and not end up dead.

Well, his faith in my ass was damn well reassuring but I wasn't completely convinced.

Three plays in junior highschool do not a good undercover agent make.

Cerberus rapped a single knuckle on the satin wood of his desk just once. Immediately the sex toy - the succubus - came slinking over. She moved behind Cerberus and began to massage both necks. Not stopping there, she used a black forked tongue to caress the curve of each ear. The level of disturbing in the room had just reached critical mass - I was minutes away from running screaming from the room. There was only so much kinky sex I could take, and no, twins have _never_ been my thing. Nor have snakes.

"You're half sheep," Cerberus commented, dark eyes probing.

I tipped my head fractionally. "Well. There's nothing a whore won't sleep with." Especially for the right price. Sophia had bred me specifically for the money - Niko had been an accident.

"Human or Auphe. Hard to determine which is more objectionable." Both heads exhaled together and then said with distaste, "Human."

When it came to Sophia, that was probably about right. Even my sire, the Auphe who'd spawned me, he'd despised her. The Kin feared but respected the Auphe. Humans were less than nothing. Sheep - that said it all. Stupid, aimless, frail, and good only for the eating. Personally, I think they weren't giving humans enough credit. After all, who ruled the world these days? And Niko was a prime example of how very deadly mere humans could be.

"And what happened to your slut of a sheep mother-"

"Who fornicated above her station?"

I grinned at Cerberus, wide and dark and Auphe. "Oh. I ate her."

No, I hadn't; she'd burned to death in our trailer, burnt to the ground by the pirating Auphe who'd stolen me. But hell, Cerberus didn't need to know that. I hadn't eaten my sire, either, though I'd torn his throat clean out with my own teeth, leaving Tumulus, and arrived at Niko's feet with a mouthful of bitter black Auphe blood. There was no blood with this arrival, but the bitter taste in my mouth almost made me wish otherwise. It was Flay's job to show the new guy around, especially since we were so buddy-buddy. Story went Flay knew a guy who knew a guy...yeah, like Martin's shady contacts...who'd seen Boaz go down that night. As far as anyone else knew, Flay and I were pals. Probably borrowed eachother's flea-collars on a regular basis.

I wasn't sure who was more put out by the introductions; me or my new co-workers. For one, the rampant scent of unwashed dog was a big downer. The pungent stench of stale ammonia, a sinus-singing deal-breaker. I sidestepped a suspicious puddle. Cerberus's office was a mostly converted warehouse on Watts Street. While the office part was an oasis of luxury, the rest of the place was still an empty warehouse. Concrete floor, high unfinished ceiling, sawdust and mold. Also very large hairy pests, unfortunately also known as my new coworkers.

Flay stopped in front of a crate serving as a card table. "Fenrik. Jaffer. Lijah. Mishka." He glanced sidelong at me, lips curling with distaste. Yeah, yeah.

The four wolves whose names he'd coughed up stared at me as if I'd fallen from the sky. White-rimmed eyes, lips stretched to nothing, claws shredding the cards they held...I amended the thought. They stared at me as if I'd fallen from the sky to rape their women, turn their children into beer cozies, and try to sell them life insurance. I was tempted to shout 'boo' and see if anyone jumped. Instead I smiled, bright and cheerful, the one that Niko said made me look demented as a demonic ferret on crack.

"Hi. I'm the new guy. Bet you didn't smell that one coming."

The silence was tense, and one guy with a foreshortened muzzle was drooling as he stared. I sauntered closer and saw but didn't react to the heightening of tension. I peered at the cards on the table. "Poker. Should have known."

"Auphe," Lijah hissed. Jaffer, he of the unhappily wet muzzle, continued to drool. Something told me that one wasn't too brave or too bright.

"Who, me? Well, only a little." I smiled brightly and put my hands in my jacket pockets. "Half, we'll say. My better half." I tipped my head a fraction. I knew exactly what that motion was. I'd got it through genetics, not habit - the Auphe all did it just that way, a little snapping move.

"Got the humor of an Auphe," Fenrik grunted, a short and impressively stout wolf with thick silver-white hair and blue-white eyes. "Funny as an infected anal gland." He reached over, grabbed a handful of Jaffer's hair, and shook him unmercifully. Clumps of hair and strings of drool flew. "You're a wolf, you neutered bastard. Act like one."

Jaffer cowered under the treatment and wiped his mouth with a hairy arm. Fire engine red, his pelt sprang from in tufts along his arms and around the neck of his Yankees sweatshirt, though he kept the hair on his head about an inch tall in a buzz-cut that stood straight up. His eyes were round and yellow, his face a furred expanse of wet nose and muzzle. Jaffer didn't get out much, I was betting. The others could pass, even Flay, but Jaffer, no way in hell.

Mishka was obviously related to Jaffer - his hair was a darker shade of red, and his eyes green-gold hazel, though instead of a muzzle he had a hell of an overbite and a human nose. Lijah was more greyhound than wolf; whipcord lean with a sleek fall of brindled hair. Black flecked with gold and brown, it fell past his shoulders and did a good job of concealing a pair of sharply-pointed ears and a jawline far too narrow for any distant relative of a primate.

All in all they were a tough crowd, with an eager hungry air and tension to them. A tautness that spoke of readiness and aggressiveness. Some wolves loved the chase, loved the taste of blood on the run. These guys definitely fell under the kill-to-run, run-to-kill category. Whatever the rest of the Kin might think about Cerberus, he wasn't a fool when it came to his hired muscle. We were all predators here, red in tooth and claw, black in heart. Even me, the new guy. Well, I was the new guy, but I wasn't going to be the low wolf on the totem pole. That was obviously Jaffer. So I moved closer and shoved him off his crate. He snarled, showing bizarrely human teeth, but it was a token protest and he scuttled aside to find another seat.

I casually stirred the dropped cards with a finger. "I'm not one for butt-sniffing for introductions. How about we play a hand or two?" I smiled, lazily.

Fenrik's pale eyes dilated, and he changed. One second a man, the next a wolf. If I'd blinked, I'd have missed it. Boaz had been good, but Fenrik was faster. I raised an eyebrow, then applauded. Three slow claps. "Good magic trick. Anything else to your show? Should I give you a treat?"

Two massive silver paws rested on the crate and jet-black lips skimmed back from stained yellow teeth, a bass growl rising from Fenrik's broad chest. It was shaping up to be Boaz all over again - at least this table, an old crate, wasn't as likely to concuss me if I got hit with it. I casually pulled out my Desert Eagle and pointed it at his chest. "I'm not interested in playing your pissing games. I don't need to prove I'm top dog, Fenrik, even if you do."

The growl deepened, and my finger tightened on the trigger. But an unlikely peace-maker stepped in: red eyes annoyed, Flay stepped up, grabbed a handful of silver hair and another of my jacket collar, and shook us both, much as Fenrik had shaken Jaffer. "Work for Cerberus." He punctuated it with another rough shake. "_All_ work for Cerberus." He dropped me back on the crate and showed Fenrik back as well. "Stupid. Cerberus eat both. Stupid." He folded his arms and shook his head with disgust.

Well. Looked like Flay here was the Alpha. Hot damn, I had the top dog as my buddy. Flay, of the sloping forehead, garbled speech, and self-proclaimed low IQ. I was starting to think he was smarter than anyone was giving him credit for, especially himself.

I hesitated, then holstered my gun, doing my best to look bored. "What the hell. Truce?"

A naked Fenrik materialized out of the mass of wolf and stared at me with narrowed eyes. He was interested in fighting me, alright, and he didn't like me. That was okay, if the situation had been reversed, I wouldn't have liked me either. Fenrik was going to need watching, that was for sure. I didn't feel like having wolf teeth in the back of the neck.

"Truce," Fenrik agreed, reluctantly, and started to dress. "I don't question the judgement of Cerberus. Even in this."

"That's big of you." I smiled. Flay was giving me a pointed look. Hey, I couldn't help that all my smiles looked either hungry or psycho. Quirk of genetics, so sorry. But one thing I could do. "Let's start off on the right paw, hmm? I'll buy lunch. And the first pitcher of beer. Anyone got a bag to put over Jaffer's head?" Food and alcohol, best way to smooth over tension and get people thinking you weren't half bad. Everybody loves free food.

Naturally, they wanted steak. So steak it was - about four cow's worth. Below Fourteenth Street, the restaurant was medium-sized, dark as a cave, and fairly cheap. Of course, fairly cheap multiplied by five wolves would put a dent even in the deepest wallet. There were porterhouse steaks all around, baked potatoes with everything, and a pitcher of beer per wolf. Just breathing the air around us would harden your arteries, an exercise in secondhand cholesterol at its best. I chewed amiably at my rare steak. It wasn't so bad, as long as I didn't think about it. I was definitely not going to freak out while undercover - it'd end up pretty fatal for me, I was sure. Niko had threatened to resurrect me somehow and kill me again if I got myself killed, anyway. Knowing him, he'd find a way to do it, too.

I was going light on the beer, too. Not that I'd get drunk enough to get loose lips, or dance a jig on the table while singing the joys of being a spy. I'd have to drink something a hell of a lot harder than beer, and more than a glass or two to do me in. But I didn't feel like being buzzed today. I was already wired on nerves.

It would have been noticed, except that Flay was helping himself to my glass on the sly. He was sitting beside me, and amongst the jumble of dishware on the crowded table, it was easy for him to grab my glass. He did so frequently - his tolerance was fine. I was glad he was being at least moderately helpful here. My job would have been impossible if he hadn't been. Granted, between Caleb's underhanded coercion and Niko's bone-chilling threat, it wasn't like the poor guy had a lot of choice. Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"More beer!"

Jaffer's slurred voice shifted my attention. He was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled so far over his face that I could see only the faint glitter of his eyes and the wet shine of his nose, which seemed to be getting progressively more damp. I shook my head and hoped I wasn't going to be washing dishes after this was all over; the alcohol tab alone was going to be staggering. I had a good bit in my wallet but even so... "More beer it is." I waved down a waitress and pointed to an empty pitcher. "Cerberus doesn't mind the liquid lunches?"

"Not so much," Fenrik grunted. "Most of our work is done at night. During the day we just make ourselves available in case something comes up. Consider us on call."

"Yeah, like doctors," Jaffer added, with a happy slurp of the tongue. The spray of saliva hit me all the way across the table, and I grabbed a napkin to wipe my face.

Sure, just like doctors. All they were missing were the stethoscopes. Dropping the napkin, I looked to my right, where Lijah had just finished his third steak while I was still on my first. Thin as a rail but damn if he couldn't pack it away. "You guys been with Cerberus long?"

There was a shrug of lean shoulders. "Long enough. He's a good Alpha, as long as you do what you're told." He said it with a confidence tinged faintly with uneasiness.

"And do it well," Mishka added glumly, raising a hand to reveal three missing fingers. Doing what you were told was easy enough, if that was what you wanted. Doing it well was sometimes a little harder.

"Looks like you screwed up at least once there, Mish." I pushed my empty plate away, stomach comfortably full. "Or Cerberus is seriously into the finger foods."

"Cerberus is a good Alpha," Fenrik repeated, stone-faced. "He gives many a chance that no other Kin would touch." He pointed his work at me. I briefly entertained the idea of snatching it and stabbing him with it. Niko was more than capable of killing someone with the most innocent of kitchen utensils. I didn't know if I could or not, but I was perfectly willing to throw myself into the spirit of experimentation to find out. "Many like you," Fenrik finished.

Rudeness with forks aside, what Fenrik said was very true. There were all sorts of monsters, layers upon layers and always worse than the next. Monsters being monsters, there was also prejudice, blatant and severe. If you were different, in any way, someone would be happy to eat you for it. The nonhuman were completely honest in their hatred, no government mandate required. Cerberus was a change from the norm. Overcoming his own difference - by sheer force and a river of blood, I was guessing - he'd gathered other outsiders around him. And he'd made it work. He'd made the Kin accept him and his pack. That was one helluva feat, even for a cold-blooded Kin murderer.

"You're right," I admitted, as I reached for my wallet and turned it inside out over the table. "No one likes the Auphe. No one respects a human. And no one, but no one, wants to work with either one. Cerberus is _the_ Alpha in my book." I thumbed through the pile of cash. Just enough to have spare change leftover for a candy bar somewhere. I wedged the cash under an empty pitcher. "You guys finish up. I've got some business to take care of."

"What kind of business?" Fenrik demanded, immediately suspicious.

I aimed a leer at the gaggle of waitresses by the bar. "Guess."

"Back...eight." Flay scowled. "Business...too. Cerberus business."

"Eight. Gotchya."

"Human?" Mishka looked at the waitresses and made a hissing sound of disgust. "They're soft. No fire."

"Hey, unlike your gals, humans are in heat _all_ the time." I copied Goodfellow's carnal and lusty tones, a smile on my lips. "And they make a nice snack afterwards." Slapping the table, I headed out. Nothing to see here, just your average cannibalistic ladies' man. Gag me with a fork, the idea made my stomach roll. Outside, lunch had faded into early afternoon - the sky was blue with no clouds and the air heavy and thick. Whew, it'd gotten warmer. Nothing to be done about that. I slipped into the crowd, and became anonymous...and disappeared.

* * *

**Halesgirl101 asked**: "I was wondering if we'll ever get to see niko in a cage fight and does cal not fight b/c he's scared to bring out his auphe or does niko not let him:)?"

_(Cal and Niko are both sprawled in the sunshine on the floor, Niko with a book, Cal with a magazine of questionable content.)  
_Cal: I don't go to Nik's cage-matches anymore. It was a mutual decision, really._  
_Niko: It was. Cal proposed it first, actually, and it worked very well. I fight better when I'm not constantly looking for Cal in the crowd.  
Cal: And I'm not having a nervous breakdown knowing that if something bad happened, I couldn't get to Niko fast enough. So I just don't go anymore.  
Niko: Not that it really ever interested you in the first place, hmm, little brother? For a monster you're terribly tame.  
Cal: There's no real sport in it. I mean, sure it's a fight, but...it's like a mouse on a string instead of a bird on a branch.  
Niko:_ (Chuckles)_ You always have loved the chase better than the kill.

**Comuterale asked:** My question is what is the most memorable/creative lesson Niko ever gave Cal, either during his homeschooling or help with homework before? ( so hand to the stove is not included)

Cal: If you mean 'memorable' as in 'godawful horror,' he helped me learn anatomy by fuckin' vivisection of a rat. If you mean 'memorable' as in 'super awesome cool,' either the time he illustrated the solar system and the effects of a supernova black hole with marshmellows, or the time we re-enacted the battle of Waterloo with toy soldiers and matches.  
Niko: Let it never be said I wasn't a creative teacher.  
Cal: Damn straight you were.


	9. Chapter Nine: Innocents

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series.

I do not own the song lyrics used to frame this piece; the first song matches the tone well, until halfway through, when the second song fits better. The first is "All Along the Watchtower," by Bear McCreary, and the second is "Push," by Matchbox Twenty.

Thanks to Kin-outcast1 for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to Comuterale, halesgirl101, and LeighAnnWallance for reviewing!

* * *

_**Chapter Nine:** Innocents_

* * *

_No need to get excited_  
_The thief he kindly spoke_  
_There are many here among us_  
_Who think life is but a joke_  
_But you and I, we've been through that_  
_And this is not our fate_  
_So let us not talk falsely now, the hour's getting late_  
-"All Along the Watchtower," Bear McCreary

* * *

The hostel room had been several layers below disgusting when I'd first rented it. I'd done some cleaning on my own - specifically the sheets, talk about nasty - but this time when I opened the door I was almost knocked down with the smell of bleach and aggressively clean sheets. I shut the door behind me and sneezed three times in rapid succession. "Ow." I looked around the room with watering eyes. Niko had apparently scrubbed the entire place down, and was now sitting on the perfectly made bed, cross-legged. He was reading and tossing a knife as he did so: a brilliant silver pinwheel hovering in the air as his hand danced below it.

I sneezed again. "Damn, did you have to use that much bleach?" It was like sticking a scrub-brush up my nose and giving it a good run over my sinuses. Ow.

"Yes." Niko shut his giant tome. Still War and Peace. Niko liked Tolstoy. He caught the knife, and held it poised between thumb and forefinger by the point, ready to throw. "You smell like alcohol."

"Bonding with the boys. They ravaged my liver and then my wallet." I moved to sit on the bed beside him, wearily. I'd walked a long damn way, doubling back to make sure I hadn't been followed. Niko and I were not supposed to be seen together. I was an agent on my own...save for a brother who would never be far if I needed him.

"Mmm. Find anything yet?" Niko tapped me on the knee with the handle of his blade.

"Christ, it's only my first day on the job. Cut me some slack," I whined, though I knew it would have been really damn nice to have just spotted the much-desired crown lying on the desk or something. Easy theft - I could have done that with no problem. Shoplifting, petty theft, I was good at that.

Niko snorted, and the knife was replaced with a knuckle tapping me. "Even if I do, your new boss won't, I'll bet."

"Cerberus? No. He won't. He'll probably eat me." I grimaced, and flopped over to lie on my back, arms spread-eagled behind Niko. The sheets smelled blissfully clean. "Not sure which head would do it but I'm not keen on finding out."

"Ah." Niko smirked, smugly. "Robin's information was correct, then."

"...he never said anything to me about two-headed mutants," I grumped, eyeing him suspiciously.

"That was today. He came by with a veritable treasure-trove of records and information. And 'dicephalus' sounds better than 'two-headed mutant.' One body, two heads." Niko let his hand rest over my knee.

"Nerd," I accused, though I'd aced biology too. I just didn't remember everything like Nik did. "Flay's been helpful." I closed my eyes and let myself relax for the first time today. God that felt good - I didn't have to watch my back constantly with Niko around. He did that for me.

"Good. I'd hate to damage him while he's helping you." Niko sounded darkly amused by the prospect. "Let's rebandage your arm before you fall asleep, little monster."

"It's not like it's going to get infected," I grumbled. I'd never had anything get infected. Niko had, and he'd been so sick one time when we'd been young that he'd come pretty close to dying. Niko patted my knee - nope, not getting out of this one. So I sat up and peeled off my jacket, my holsters, and my shirt. Niko picked up the bag he'd laid beside the bed, and pulled out a knife. He slit my bandages and I prodded at the stitches while he got out supplies. They were covered just to remind me they were there, and to keep the wound almost hidden from the wolves I was working with. At least the raw-skin-from-bodach-blood was almost all healed up on my opposite arm, leaving flaky itchy healing spots.

"I don't have to be back until eight," I commented, tugging at a loosened stitch. "Could just leave it open for a bit." No sunbathing, too bad. I liked it because it helped with the pain. Not that it hurt now, but...

Niko considered. "A good idea. Why eight?" He put things away and dropped the bag back to the floor. He held out a hand; I plopped my arm into it to let him have a squint at the stitches. He bent closer and gravely examined them.

"Dunno. A job. Don't suppose I can call in sick, huh?" I had no idea what crime work for the Kin would entail, but I doubted it was anything so nice as handing out sandwiches to the homeless.

"Unfortunately, I suppose not." Niko returned my arm, and passed a hand over my shoulder, before pinching the back of my arm hard enough to make my eyes water. I snapped an elbow at him, irritation flaring; he slapped it down and drove a knuckle between two ribs. I yelped and twisted away from the new bruise. Niko was apparently not in the mood to deal with my shit. Well too bad, I was not in the mood to deal with his, either. His grey gaze was level, warning. I glared back.

A cockroach dropped from the ceiling and landed between us. We flew apart, tensions forgotten, and both slapped at the cheap counterpane. We ended up banging knuckles and the roach escaped scot-free and vanished under the bed. I shook my hand out and Niko did the same, muttering curses. I reached for my shirt, and shook it to make sure no vermin were hidden in the folds. No way was I napping shirtless with cockroaches around. I'd been bitten before, thanks. Niko shook his head, scowling deeply, before he wiped the expression off his face and sighed, deeply. He nodded to me. "Have your nap. I'll wake you when it's time."

"Yeah." Fighting wasn't a good idea right now, no matter how he annoyed me or how my ribs burned with a new bruise. I pulled off my boots and got into bed. Niko sat on the corner, picked up his giant tome, and began reading again.

And that was that.

It'd been a stressful day. I burrowed under the mercifully clean sheets and closed my eyes. And I slept.

I did dream, but it was most uneasy jumbles that faded when Niko touched my shoulder or called my name. I knew he was there and it helped. He would protect me, even from myself and my nightmares. In and out of sleep, in and out of dreams, and at last I dreamed of Tumulus, of red sand cutting as glass under my bare feet, of a sulphur-yellow sky and the dry smell of dessicated rot, of the Auphe beside carefully telling me the tales just as it had been taught.

Niko shook my shoulder and I bolted awake. Shrugging off his hand I sat up, pulled my knees to my chest, snatched my socks off. I brushed at the bottoms of my bare feet, as if it would dust off the cutting sand, the phantom sensation of it grinding and giving beneath my soles. I settled my feet against the bedcovers, taking a deep breath, concentrating on the very different sensation of clean linens against my bare feet. Very different. Niko leaned over and set a hand over each of my feet, his olive-tanned skin stark against my almost translucently pale skin. I stared at his hands and felt better.

"No sand," Niko reminded me, voice deep and calm and easy.

"No sand," I agreed, and curled my toes. Ugh. "Can I go back to sleep?"

"Even if you could, I wouldn't advise it. Ten minutes will only make you cranky." Niko was smiling, when I looked up, and his grey eyes were warm and fond. Reassuring. Everything was okay. I took a deeper breath and let it out. I started to wriggle out of my shirt so he could help me wrap my arm up again.

"So what are we going to do about this job?" I asked, emerging again. My ponytail was pulled crooked by my shirt. I reached up and pulled the holder out. Niko had cut my hair for me, so it was about two inches below my shoulders again. That was about the length I liked to keep it. Less hassle.

Niko was laying the bandaging supplies across the rumpled bedspread. "I'm not sure. I'll think of something, when we discover what it entails." He picked up the jar of vaseline, and started smearing it along the stitches. I winced when he hit a deeper patch of bruising. "You can't break cover for me, remember."

"I know." It would be so hard not to react to his scent or any sight of him. When I wasn't beside Nik I was looking for him - he was the one with the plan, most of the time, so it was just a natural consequence of that. It'd be hard, but I was pretty sure I could do it. "Best to make sure I don't see you, then," I teased. I knew how likely it was that I would see him.

"Of course. I am the wind, invisible, untouchable, unknowable," Niko declared, loftily, and gently traced the last smears of vaseline over the burn-scars on my left palm. He was always more gentle than he had to be with the scars he'd given me. It was a little regret, I thought - that was the rarest emotion Niko ever showed, and only to me - but mostly a reverence for the remembered pain, care that he didn't make it hurt again. Not that he was likely to make scars hurt, but that was just Niko's funny quirk. I helped him place the gauze-pads and start the actual bandage.

"For the wind you're pretty damn substantial," I jibed, and extended my leg to kick him lightly in the thigh.

Niko snorted as he wrapped my arm. His calloused fingers were deft, moving smoothly. We'd had a lot of practise at bandaging eachother up over the years. "I have something for you. A little extra help to ease my mind."

I thought about it and held down the end of the gauze. "You got me an Uzi."

Niko laughed, a startled snort and chuckle. "No, but that's an idea. A submachine gun wouldn't look too odd in the mob, now would it?" he teased, smiling widely. He picked up the vet-wrap and began again. "Sadly, no. It's a very special knife."

"It comes equipped with lasers," I guessed, after a moment.

"Wrong, though also very close," he answered, grey eyes bright, and I could just tell he was easy, relaxed, and having fun. No worries, no upset, and that made me feel pretty damn okay.

"Well, is it right or wrong?" I growled, and something slipped in my voice and dropped deeper, inhuman, and it really was a growl. I blinked, and Niko paused in wrapping my wrist, eyebrows rising briefly. I tried it again, consciously making the change. Well, okay, that was cool. Sorta. I looked up at Niko, who looked vaguely impressed. I grinned at him, all teeth. "Answer me, dickwad, or I'll bite you. Again."

Niko's bare wrists were marked with white scars - teeth-marks and long thin nail-scratches. He even had some on his fingers and palms...but he only laughed at me, unafraid. "Heaven forbid. It's a knife with a special tip, silver-plated glass. All you need to do is break the glass on something, and the electronics beneath will tell me you're up shit creek without a paddle."

"Well, that's useful for you. Not sure what it gets me," I pointed out. I watched as Niko cut the vet-wrap and pulled out the duct-tape. A nice fat strip of that and I was good to go. I reached for my shirt as he started putting things away. "I guess if worst comes to worst, General Nose, I'll break it over my own head."

"At least you'll be using it for something good at last," he chuckled, and he didn't mean the knife. I growled, and then stuck my tongue out at him. He flicked a leaf-shaped throwing-blade from a pocket and playfully threatened me with it.

I put my shirt on. "I use my head all the damn time, thanks." I fiddled my sleeves straight, and reached up to re-do my ponytail with the elastic around my wrist. "Besides, you told me I was smart. You can't say I don't use my head and I'm smart. Doesn't follow, Nik."

"Even the smartest of men are prone to occasional idiocy," Niko returned, and pulled out a different blade. This one he handed over.

I finished my ponytail and took the slim knife, tucking it into the holster beside my favorite K-BAR knife. "I'll remember that and call you on your next point of idiocy, Sir Anteater."

"Alas, I gave you ammunition. I might as well surrender now," Niko laughed, holding up his hands in the classic surrendering pose.

"Damn straight!" I grinned and reached for my boots. Was I worried about what would happen in a few hours? Yeah, I'd be stupid not to be. But could I do any damn thing about it? Not until I got there, no. And Niko would be there, too. Whatever went down, we'd have it covered. And it felt good to laugh, good to see Niko. After not spending time with him...it felt nice to be glad to see him again. Spending so long in that shoebox of an apartment, well, they do say familiarity breeds contempt. In our case it was less contempt and more premeditated murder, but...

I laced my boots up and got ready for the night.

I had expected to be doing something mob-like. Beating some guy up for drug debts. Blackmailing some businessman.

Not picking up take-out.

From a monster point of view, that was exactly what this was. From my more human view, it was selecting victims for murder. Okay, that was mob-like enough, but still not what I'd pictured.

I didn't have a damn clue how I was going to stop this, either. Hell, I wasn't going to let a bunch of greasy underfed homeless get stuffed in the freezers of various wolves for later. Or other monsters - offhand, I couldn't think of anything that _didn't_ eat humans. Cerberus had come up with a brilliant business scheme; tell the poor homeless humans they were about to get a free bus-trip to a new clinic in Brooklyn. Load the humans up. Sell them out to whoever wanted a tasty homeless meal. Fuck. The boys and I were here to pick, and while they were doing it by size I was going at random because fuck if I cared. Except I did. I cared a lot. These were_ people_ and no-one deserves to be eaten.

But monsters ate people. Cerberus had proved that earlier. He'd called in the whole gang earlier to give us orders, but halfway down the hall I'd smelled it. Dead human. The smell had been almost too much and I really couldn't afford a mental breakdown. So I'd come up with a quick excuse - I'd tripped Jaffer on the doorstep and then jumped on the poor guy, swearing at him for being a clumsy-ass bastard and the next time he bumped me... Flay and Cerberus had no patience for that kind of shit, and Flay had shut the door on us. Jaffer had howled and cried and cringed. You'd have thought I was killing the guy - and I hadn't really even hit him yet. I'd let him worry a bit before I'd rolled off and sat against the wall. After a moment, Jaffer had sat up too, and we'd waited together companionably. He hadn't been put out in the least over the rough treatment over absolutely nothing. In fact, he'd just shrugged at me and that was that.

Unfortunately I'd used up all my brilliant planning for the night. Which left me wondering what I was going to do to stop a busload of misled homeless, five wolves, and one revenant from heading to Brooklyn. Scratch that, I could take the revenant no problem. He was _supposed_ to be working with us, but who wanted to work with something that reeked that badly? Not me, that's for damn sure. The raincoat, baseball cap, and dark glasses did nothing for hiding his unholy reek.

Which was why when the poisonous shithead decided he'd taste the back of my neck, I was more than happy for the excuse. I ripped his tongue clean out, and got a torn sleeve from the demonic-ferret-teeth. Spitting blood, the revenant fell back, eyes lurid with pain. The wolves were sniggering. They couldn't care less about what I did with the revenant. Hell, I could have popped off his head and used it for a bowling ball and not one of the wolves would have so much as blinked. The only thing they cared about was whether or not I scared off their homeless sheep.

Unfortunately for me, no-one had seen my neat trick. Damn my luck.

I climbed onto the bus and slid into the front seat, wiping brownish-black blood on my jeans as I did so. Fenrik was behind the wheel, and he merely raised an eyebrow. I stared back, and after a moment he looked away. Score for me. As my newly detongued pal climbed onto the bus, I shifted and let him see my shiny shiny guns under my jacket. Next time, he wasn't going to get off so lightly. His tongue would eventually grow back, as would anything else I'd try to rip off. If that wasn't proof there was no justice in the world, I didn't know what was.

Other than the fact that Fenrik was starting up the bus and a load of homeless people were about to be driven off to their deaths. I still had no idea what I was going to do, and a wild stray thought almost made me laugh - for a cattle-truck the seats sure were comfy. Okay, I did not need to go hysterical, or panicked, and I did not need the absurd flashbacks of Niko passing cattle-trailers on the highway with me staring out the windows at the cows inside. Fuck my life, fuck my addled overstressed brain - my chest was feeling tight and my skin crawling. I did _not_ need to have a goddamn panic attack right here. No I did not.

Yeah that was about to happen anyway.

I decided I'd at least shoot Fenrik before I checked out of reality and died an awful death, but even as I stood up, something happened. The bus shuddered with a tortured scream of metal and yawed sideways like a drunken elephant. I braced against the seat and kept my feet as the bus rocked. Cries of shock and surprise rose from the other passengers, and one worse-for-wear set of dentures flew through the air to clip Fenrik behind one ear. He snarled and fought with the large steering wheel, attempting to keep the white bus from tipping over. He was successful, just barely, until we careened to a jolting halt against the curb.

For a moment it seemed like we would stay upright; then we went over. All the windows on the downside of the bus shattered at the impact, spraying glass upward. It was tempered nd the one piece that grazed my jaw barely scratched the skin. There was no way to keep my feet as the bus tumbled over, but my natural grace, such as it was, kept me from falling face-first. Ass first was a different story. I looped an arm around the metal pole by the door and swung around, landing on my back as the bus hit and teetered on its side before stabilizing there. I blinked, feeling the grit of pulverized glass through my jacket. Inhaling an experimental breath, I took inventory and discovered I was in one piece, more or less. My heart was still doing its best to explode it was beating so fast and I still felt like I wasn't getting enough air in, but as far as panic attacks went that was pretty mild. Turning my head carefully, I looked through the cracked windshield to see what had caused the truck.

We'd been rammed...by a garbage truck The front of it was barely in view, but the shape was unmistakable. The engine of the hulking green metal monster growled, but the driver's seat was empty. Abandoned, a hit-and-run, but I knew it was no city worker in coveralls who'd fled the scene, nope. Within minutes there would be the telltale sounds of sirens, police and ambulance, and getting these people to their Cerberus-planned destination would be a lost cause. God Nik was clever, but did he have to risk my life and limb in the process? Shit.

Sitting up gingerly, I reached out and shook Fenrik's shoulder. He hadn't been wearing a seatbelt - naughty naughty - and was crumpled and bleeding against the door beside me. "Fen, on your paws. Time to cut our losses," I managed, breathless and jittery like a crack addict.

Blue eyes rolling toward me, the bloody face twitched as he threw off the shock of the collusion. Growling low in his throat from either pain or confusion, he pushed up to his knees and started crawling back towards the emergency exit. Flay, who'd been several seats back, was already kicking the rear door open with both feet. I followed in Fenrik's wake and noticed that the men and the women in the bus were coming to their senses. Some were moaning, while others started to shout for help. Nobody seemed fatally injured, though, and that put them head and shoulders above where they'd been a few minutes ago. I kept crawling and within seconds tumbled out onto the street, shortly followed by Jaffer, Mishka, Lijah, and that nameless, tongueless, decomposing piece of shit.

A crowd was beginning to form in the deadlocked traffic, and I winnowed my way through with a few well-placed elbows. Leaving the scene of an accident - in any other city it might have raised some protests. Leaving the scene with the overly hairy, the white-eyed, and the disturbingly slimy of skin - you'd think that'd trigger _something_. At least one "Holy shit." But there was nothing but murmurs and the occasional whistle at the sight of the overturned bus. Honestly I wasn't too surprised. Over the years, I'd learned that people saw exactly what they wanted to see and no more. You couldn't make them see the truth if they didn't want to. Unfortunately, I wasn't going to have the bliss of that oblivion when it came to owning up to Cerberus that we'd wrecked his money-earning scheme...literally. I had no doubt this was going to be bloody and violent, and with my heart already running ninety to nothing, I wasn't looking forward to see if it was possible to die from an ill-timed mental breakdown.

Niko might have saved my soul and a good dozen people from being eaten, but I doubted he could save me from this.

I wasn't the one who needed saving. Fenrik took the blame - he'd been driving. He was the most directly responsible, as Cerberus saw it, and Cerberus dealt with him. I'd escaped relatively blameless, as had the others; as long as we didn't screw up in the near future, we might survive the week. We were still on Cerberus's shit list, but far enough down we weren't an immediate concern. Besides, Fenrik's public death had been a very pointed lesson for us all: Cerberus had eaten him alive. Cerberus had gone all wolf to do it, and if he had been freaky and disturbing in human form, he was a nightmare given flesh as a wolf. Fenrik had gone down fighting, jaws like a bear trap and incredible speed, but Cerberus had taken him down like he had been nothing. Fenrik had died fighting, and he'd died howling, and his death had been ugly and I hadn't liked it. It was ugly, _political_. You only ate the weak, and Fenrik had not been weak - taking down the other hunters before the kill was not something you did.

Staring at Fenrik's red red blood, I realized I was thinking in Auphe terms, and was very nearly sick on the floor. Christ, that was all I needed.

But they were right; only take down the weak.

When we were dismissed, faintly spattered with gore, I went out of the warehouse and down the street and found a nicely deserted alleyway. And I had a well-deserved and self-indulgent meltdown. I could taste blood thick on my tongue and I whispered curses at Cerberus under my breath so I wouldn't scream them. I did break things, a bunch of trash in the back of the alley; a lamp, a chair, a box of dishes. Things shattered and gave and ground into tiny little broken pieces under my boots. I was standing there in the wreckage, panting for breath, shaking all over, when movement at the alley's mouth made me look up. It was Flay.

He stared at me a moment, red eyes gleaming in the streetlamps in an animal's ambient glow. Then he nodded to me, almost gracefully, and turned and left. I stared after him and wondered hazily how long he'd been there. What he'd seen, what he'd heard, because the strain in my throat told me somewhere along the way I'd switched over to Auphe. That was...disturbing. Speaking the language, thinking like they did...where was that going to end? I didn't like it. I sank back under the blanketing layer of exhaustion and started walking. I needed to meet with Niko.

The hostel room was the same as I'd left it earlier this awful horrible night - hideous in decoration but scrupulously clean. Niko wasn't reading Tolstoy, though: he was pacing, and turned to me with relief and concern in his eyes. He came to meet me, wordlessly holding out his hands. I walked right into him, put my face down on his shoulder, and let my mind go blissfully blank. That child's mentality again: Niko would fix it, make it better. He always had before.

But I wasn't a child anymore, and neither was Niko. He'd always kept me safe, but there were monsters in the world. And I was one of them.

I was one of them, but Niko welcomed me with opened arms, and held me close without fear. I turned my head, felt the warm bare flesh of his throat against my cheek and lips, and decided distantly that I was going crazy because I felt it'd be so easy to bare my teeth and rip.

"I could tear out your throat and I think you'd let me," I said against his shoulder, but it came out in Auphe and Niko didn't so much as flinch. Reluctantly I leaned back, clearing my throat. Niko let his hands frame my shoulders, grey eyes meeting mine steadily. "I lived."

"I know. I was waiting," Niko told me, quietly. He'd been waiting outside the warehouse, then, until he'd seen me come out all in one piece. Knowing that made my shoulders drop, tension falling away like a physical weight. Niko'd been there the whole time. And then I was angry, too, because he'd done one good thing and hadn't been there for the fallout of it. Hadn't taken the punishment. I clenched my hands into fists and shut my eyes. Relief and anger and dizzy exhaustion made me feel nauseated.

"Fuck you. _Fuck_ you!" I wanted to punch him. Instead I shoved at him, like a kid. He staggered, let me push him, and I did it again, harder, swearing at him thickly, voice ragged and hoarse. He took it, let me push him around the room, even went down sprawling on the floor when I shoved him against the chair. He laid there on his elbows and stared up at me, grey eyes serene. God, I hated him and loved him and wanted to kill him all in that moment, and when I went to my knees beside him, he sat up and hugged me. I thumped my fist against his ribs repeatedly, weakly, and tried to pretend there weren't tears on my face.

Niko hummed that old, old lullabye, and slowly everything drained out of me. All the fight and anger and tight panic fizzled out, and I was so, so tired.

It had been a long, long night.

I scented something outside Niko's cocooning arms, and lifted my head, resting my chin on his shoulder. Goodfellow was watching us from the bathroom doorway; open pity and sympathy and echoing pain were all in those forest-green eyes of his. I stared blankly at him. I couldn't bring myself to care. I was a wreck and Niko was a bastard and that was just our malfunction. We made it work. Niko made it work, and he was gently nudging me to sit straight. I sat up and looked at him.

"You need to eat and rest, little brother," Niko coaxed, hands still nudging, cupping under my elbows like he'd pull me up like a kid. "Come on."

I swore wearily at him. "Not hungry." I got up, though. Why? Because Niko wasn't going to stop until I was taken care of. I got up and sat heavily on the bed and sat with my hands in my lap, staring at the top of Niko's head as he knelt and started unlacing my boots. "Nik, what if I can't do this?"

Niko glanced up briefly, before moving to the other boot. "You can."

Absolute confidence. I didn't feel confident. "Nik. I'm a goddamn wreck. I'm a mental catastrophe. I am going to get killed."

Niko set my boots down, got to his feet, and bent, smoothing my hair with one hand and kissing my forehead lightly. Softest brush of dry, chapped lips, and Niko's warm vodka-flavored breath on my face. He pulled back. "You can do it. I know this is hard on you. If I had any other choice, I wouldn't ask you to do this. Not because I don't think you can, but because I know it's goddamn difficult and I want to make life easy for you because I love so damn much. You're my little brother, Cal. But I know you can do this. You're stronger than you think you are, and you always have been. Trust me - I know. You can do this. You know I've never lied to you."

He was right. He'd never lied to me, not about anything. He'd always told me the truth. I clenched my left hand, felt the pull of the burn scars. Hah, like Sophia, always telling the truth like a knife straight to the heart. I closed my eyes and let my head bow. Niko kissed the top of my head like a blessing, and I felt cold and tired and relentlessly, houndingly loved. It was an exhausting feeling.

"Soup?" Niko asked, gently.

"The vodka in your pocket." I didn't open my eyes.

Niko made a faint noise, protest or amusement I wasn't sure. He dug in his coat pocket and produced the thin slim bottle, unscrewing the metal cap deftly. He pressed the body-warm bottle into my hand and I tipped my head back and took a long pull. I came up coughing, eyes watering from the burn. Vodka wasn't really meant to be drunk by the bottle like this, but it was a fast way to self-medicate so maybe I wouldn't mind my fucked-up dreams tonight. Niko reached up and let his fingers tangle over mine, glass and alcohol and steady presence.

Robin walked closer, softly. I kept my eyes closed, as if by not seeing them I could stop seeing Fenrik die. I hadn't liked him. Hell, he hadn't liked me. But to kill him like that, for no damn good reason except to make a point?

I drank what was left - half the pint - and only got halfway buzzed. Damn tolerance, damn Auphe genes. I laid down on the bed, and Niko pulled the covers over me. He sat on the edge of the bed, and patiently worked the holder out of my hair, humming faintly under his breath. I hid my face in the pillow. I didn't want to talk to Robin, but I knew he wasn't going to be quiet for long. Niko's humming measured out a rhythm I unconsciously started breathing to - all was calm, he was saying, all was well. Pretty Pavlovian of me, I know, but having a definite set of signals, a set routine for specific triggers...that helped counter them. Yeah the alcohol helped too. Several long, slow minutes passed. Niko smoothed my hair over and over again.

"Niko. Are you...sure he can do this?" Robin asked, softly. Damn, even he doubted.

"I am dead certain," Niko answered, quick as the bounce of a ball. "He is strong enough to do it. You saw a breakdown - and he is under great stress. He lost it a little tonight, but let me tell you what he did_ not_ do, Robin. He did _not_ scream, he did _not_ lose time, he did _not_ panic or even hurt me seriously in a blind fit. He did _not_ lose all control. In seven months he's made amazing progress - he's_ healing_, Robin, and I don't think this will break him."

I made a mental note to not tell Niko about my earlier breakdown in the alley, where I'd done most of that. So much for healing.

"I'm not sure you can say that," Robin demurred.

Niko chuckled, shifting on the bed. His hand tangled lightly in my hair. "You're thinking of the Cal you knew. Robin, when the Auphe took him, they changed him. He was almost meek. They'd broken him, somehow. This is how he used to be - he used to have a hell of a temper. He used to have such a fighting spirit. And that's what I'm seeing in him now. He's relearning how to cope with it, yes, but he's saner and he's more stable than he's been for a long time."

Robin sighed. "If you say so. I'm just...I know you know him better than I do, but I'm worried." I heard him right the chair and sit in it. "I doubt after last time, he'd let me offer any therapy." Bitterness, self-deprecation.

"Ask," Niko answered, lightly. "Cal has a very generous heart - he's not holding anything against you, Robin. Just ask him."

"Generous? Are you sure? With that scowl I'm not sure how you'd come to that." Robin gave a wan chuckle. "I get the feeling he doesn't like me anyway. It's such a shame - you and I get along so well. I'd like to be his friend, too. I know he's important to you." I wasn't sure I wanted to decipher the bitter cocktail of emotion in Robin's voice; something like regret and longing and resignation to grief.

"Ask him, Robin," Niko repeated. "Just talk to him like you do with me. Cal needs a friend...we've had so few, over the years, and I wish I could change that for him. I wish...I wish I could have given him a better life, Robin. He deserves so much more." Yeah, that wistfulness and regret? Niko was laying it on thick. Damn thick for Robin - you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Niko had said as much to me before, too, but without the melodramatics. Sure he meant that - he did, but not the way Robin was getting it, all heavy and cold. Niko didn't do regret. He always said he had other things to waste his time on. Regret got you nowhere.

"I think you've given him enough." Robin's voice was kind, and for a moment there was silence. "By the way, what time _did_ you leave that bar last night?"

"Actually, not long after I called you. Something was just off. Probably, oh, around eleven thirty. Why?" Niko's hand in my hair tightened briefly, not hard enough to hurt. He knew I wasn't asleep, not yet, but I doubted Robin knew.

"I wondered if you'd seen anything strange, that's all. The murder's been all over the news, and I knew you'd been to that bar last night, and surprisingly late, for you!" Robin shrugged - I could hear his clothes rustle.

Niko snorted. "Damn, one prank call when I'm tipsy and you're trying to put me at the scene of a murder. Harsh, Robin." But his tone was playful, easy. "No, I left fairly early. I could tell something was going to go down...it just didn't feel right."

"Well, you're one of the last people I expected to call me to ask if my refrigerator was running at eleven at night," Robin admitted, with a chuckle. "Couldn't you have come up with something more sexy? Maybe what I was wearing? Which was nothing, by the way."

"No. For one, I'm not a nymphomaniac. For another, I'm straight. Even when I'm drunk it doesn't occur to me to flirt with you, naked or not. Your sex appeal has no power here." Niko smoothed my hair again, easily, a familiar motion.

"But you admit I have roaring sex appeal," Robin pointed out, smug.

"You have _something_. It's either sex appeal or witchcraft, given every time I've called you this week you've been in the middle of an orgy. I decided to err on the side of ego-gratification." Niko paused, and his tone was both sly and playful, proudly amused at his own cleverness. "After all, I believe that's what you do for friends, is it not?"

Robin laughed aloud, trying to muffle it so he wouldn't 'wake' me. Niko chuckled, low and deep. "Ouch! My pride! You play a hard-hitting game, friend." But Robin was not offended and still laughing.

"Oh," said Niko, lightly, "I don't believe in playing for anything but keeps."

* * *

_I wanna push you around_  
_Well I will, well I will_  
_I wanna push you down_  
_Well I will, well I will_  
_I wanna take you for granted_  
_I wanna take you for granted, yeah well I will_  
-"Push," Matchbox Twenty


	10. Chapter Ten: Guilt

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used here!

Thanks to Comuterale for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to Obi the Kid, Kin-outcast1, Chades, and halesgirl101 for reviewing!

* * *

_**Chapter Ten:** Guilt_

* * *

_Wake up call_  
_Caught you in the morning_  
_With another one in my bed_  
_Don't you care about me anymore?_  
_Care about me, I don't think so_  
_Six foot tall_  
_Came without a warning_  
_So I had to shoot him dead_  
_Don't you care about me anymore?_  
_Care about me, I don't think so_  
-"Wake Up Call," Maroon 5

* * *

Niko had brought me breakfast. And coffee. Oh God, such good coffee. I went for that first. Halfway through it, I woke up enough to comment, "I hope if they run prints at that bar they don't find yours."

"My case was dismissed as justifiable homicide," Niko returned, calmly, eating his muffin. "Besides, I was _eight_ at the time, Cal. My file is closed. I highly doubt they'll look me up, and even if they did, how would they even find me? I'm currently homeless, have no social security card, have no insurance, have a low-end job, and a fake driver's license."

"And a brother who is currently pretending to be part of the Kin. Not to mention those nice diplomas from Princeton and Oxford in your name, the numerous traffic tickets across nearly all continental states, drunken disorderly conduct, assaulting an officer of the law, about a dozen counts of bail, _and_ you were held once on suspicion of murder." I rolled my eyes. I knew Niko's rap sheet so well because I liked throwing it in his face. He wasn't perfect and it irritated him when he got caught. "And don't pretend you can't get your Social Security if you wanted. You have your birth certificate."

"True enough about the diplomas, but everything else since then has been under false names." Niko shrugged. All except the suspicion of murder; Niko's first girlfriend had been beaten to death with a baseball bat. They'd decided it wasn't him, but the case was still open, as far as I knew. She'd been a pretty girl, and I'd been sad about it. Niko had cried at the funeral, and I wasn't sure it'd been completely for show. "I wouldn't want Social Security anyway. The government's going bankrupt. If I live long enough to retire there won't be enough government money left to pay for it."

That, and we lived by Sophia's rules, even so long after - we didn't exist legally. You couldn't trust the law or the government. You could work the system, sure, but Niko and I weren't cut out for that kind of work. I shrugged and went back to my very good coffee. Niko let me eat, then started quizzing me on possible ideas of action. I needed to know where that crown was. Flay had mentioned Cerberus might have given it as a gift to the sex toy...the succubus.

"I suppose you could...try to entice her..." Niko offered, reluctantly, his face twisting with distaste. I felt the same way. I shuddered.

"No way in hell. For one, snakes aren't my kink. For two, succubi don't like the way I taste."

"_What._"

Niko's response was disturbingly flat, his face gone blank. I hastened to explain before he got too angry. "We were drunk, remember? Maybe you don't, we were all fuckin' _smashed_ and Lilith wondered if I'd taste human. So I kissed her. Apparently I taste like an Auphe and that's nasty shit." I grimaced because even through the drunken haze I remembered the cold feeling of scales, the taste of wet sulfur like venom, and the slender forked tongue that had wrapped itself around mine, like a noose.

"I had not remembered," Niko said, and his tone was stiff. He looked like he didn't know quite how to feel; disgusted, outraged, shocked.

"Yeah. Well. It's not an option." I shrugged. It'd been stupid. I regretted it. It had seemed really damn logical at the time, but that had been the alcohol talking.

"Nice to know." Niko's tone was still stiff. He didn't exactly sound _angry_ but I would be treading lightly for a bit, just to be safe. Why it would bother him so much, I didn't stop to analyze; what mattered was judging his mood and keeping my head down.

Then I realized what I was thinking and didn't know if I felt sick or pissed.

I settled for not-really-awake and went back to my coffee. I picked up a muffin and ate it in silence. Niko cleared his throat at last. "Do you still have Robin's cell number?" he asked, and his tone was calm again, controlled and planning.

I muttered an affirmative through my mouthful of muffin. Niko rolled his grey eyes, longsuffering patience written across his face. "Mmii?"

Correctly translating that as 'why' Niko raised a single blonde eyebrow. "Cal. Think about it."

I did. Then I groaned. "Look, I haven't finished my coffee," I protested. Niko just gave me a flat, unimpressed look. Yeah, coffee was no excuse, you had to be severely mentally retarded to not know 'why.' "So. Sex on legs and sex on scales. He might be able to give me tips."

"Right on the money. Keep him in mind," Niko advised, and stole half my muffin with a smirk.

Well, hell, that wasn't going unpunished, unfinished coffee or not.

I left Niko mopping up spilled coffee and picking muffin crumbs out of the carpet. One of my ears was still stinging and my hair smelled like life-giving coffee but Niko had a whole new bruise on his shoulder and a nice bite-mark on his nose. I'd won. He'd been too busy trying to not get scalded with coffee to fend off a direct frontal attack. I'd forgone such caution and my ear was going to be bright red for a day or so. I didn't care a damn; I'd bested Niko right after breakfast, and I was feeling like the king of the world as I headed for the warehouse.

Well, that lasted for all of an hour, as long as it took me to track down the succubus and attempt to get my sexy monster face on.

Let's just say it didn't go down well.

I decided calling Robin was probably my best bet, and relocated for both the call and the meeting.

Goodfellow's weight settled next to me on the park bench as his long legs stretched out to bask in the nonexistent sun. "You rang?"

I tipped my head back to stare up at the grey and overcast sky. The clouds hung low and heavy, the air warm. It was probably going to storm later - the air felt sullen and charged. "Yeah. I need some help." So to speak.

"I gathered that." Goodfellow grinned confident, folded his arms behind his head, and tilted his head to see me over the frames of his dark sunglasses. "My expertise in all matters is legendary. Many worship at the altar of my brilliance and who can blame them? How can I service you today, puny mortal?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Christ, could he get any more corny? "Yeah, yeah, brilliant, worship, gotchya. So there's this succubus..."

Robin perked up instantly, grinning lasciviously. "Oh? Do tell. Give me all the filthy, filthy details."

Details, huh? I raised an eyebrow. "Scales creep me out, and I taste bad."

Mobile lips twitched with surprise and amusement. Robin pulled off his sunglasses to get a better look at me. "You taste...bad." There was a very deliberate pause. "Taste bad."

"Yup." I slouched against the bench, amused by his amusement. Well, hell, what could I say? The truth's the truth, brother.

"As in, literally, physically taste bad, or was it your energy that was too much for her delicate palate?" Robin wanted to know.

"Energy, but apparently physically I don't taste half as bad as I smell." I shrugged. "But since that's coming from a snake I'm not sure I trust it." Though it probably said a lot about the state of your soul when a succubus would rather send out for General Tso's than suck you dry.

"Good. All snakes are liars," Robin chuckled.

"What about goats?" I jabbed back, and he simply smiled. Fine, keep your damn secrets, Robin. I shrugged in return, but I was trying not to smile myself . Sometimes I did enjoy talking to Robin - he was smart and he was fun and I wanted to trust him more than I should've. "Right. Moving on, I want you to talk to her and see what you can find out."

"I see." He slipped his sunglasses back on. "You want to use me. You want me to be a gigolo...to whore myself out for your convenience."

"Pretty much," I admitted without compunction.

He laid an arm along the back of the bench and gave a grin birthed in vice. "Who could say no to that?"

We headed back to the warehouse. People had been lying low after Cerberus's temper tantrum yesterday. I didn't blame them, honestly. They would trickle in after dark, heads down and tails tucked. Cerberus was gone. High-level Kin meeting, stress-relieving massacre up north - I didn't know and I didn't care. I simply seized the opportunity. And after said opportunity spit me out, I was back with reinforcements.

"She's in the office." I scanned the gloomy interior for any unexpected visitors. "She won't be suspicious about you showing up out of the blue, will she?"

Managing to swagger and limp at the same time, Goodfellow shot the cuffs of his shirt. "No. Succubi don't think like that. They're interested in eating and sex and they never have to work very hard at either. She won't think twice about me walking through the doors. She'll just light a few candles and put on a bib." He ran a smoothing hand over his hair. "Snakes don't wonder where their food comes from. They simply accept it. It's all about the ego."

"Too bad they're not humble like you." I was smiling, though, as I gestured to the office door. He was confident. We could do this. "Want me to introduce you?"

"No." Goodfellow set a hand on the office doorknob. "It'd only slow me down." He grinned at me, and vanished within.

I couldn't help the laugh. It was so absurd, over-confident, and completely Robin. Yeah, I liked him. I liked him a hell of a lot. I only hoped he wouldn't get eaten. I leaned against the wall of the office and waited, partially standing guard. Sure, Robin could handle himself, but it was nice to know when somebody was about to shank you from behind. Nobody seemed to be here, but hell, that could change.

I was starting to count floor tiles when the sound split the the air: a rattle buzz-saw sharp and spine twisting in its intensity. A hundred pissed-off rattlers or a hundred orgasmic ones, and I didn't even want to guess. Nervous instinct moved me away - rattlers are _mean_ fuckers - and I fervently hoped that was a good sound and not an indication that Robin was being swallowed whole by a supernaturally horny boa constrictor. The sound wanted to get inside my head and vibrate between my ears. I popped in my earbuds and cranked up Alice in Chains and that was that. Better. The buzz was still there but it wasn't making me twitchy anymore.

That didn't mean that when Robin popped out of the office door, I didn't put my gun to hand, but hey, it was a reflex. Robin didn't seem alarmed. In fact, he looked stony-faced grim, and I yanked my earbuds out. "Did you learn any...oh _shit_ Robin!" I smelled it before I saw it - deep blue stains splashed liberally over his shirt. It wasn't his blood, and it was easy to guess whose it was.

"Who here deserves to go down the most?" he asked, and held out his stained arm - he was holding a knife dripping cobalt blood. There were claw-marks on his neck, bleeding sluggishly, but for the most part he seemed unharmed.

His question didn't need much thought. I answered automatically, "The revenant. You killed her?"

"She was in the mood for sex. She wasn't in the mood to talk," Robin snapped, moving down the stairs with a sharp stride. I flinched aside as he passed - he was _pissed_ and the way he moved reminded me of Niko, violence tightly controlled. Habit told me to stay the hell out of the way and keep my head down. Robin had never raised a hand to me, and I knew logically he never would, but the twist in my gut just wouldn't be ignored. "She was more afraid of Cerberus than she was stupid, and that's saying something. The revenant have any personal things here?"

I followed him down the stairs as he leaned on the rail to spare his bad leg. "I'm not sure," I confessed, quickly, racking my brain. It wasn't like they passed out employee lockers here or anything, and I'd only been here two days.

"Think." Robin hit the bottom of the stairs, and whirled to face me, green eyes hard. "If we don't pin it on someone else, you'll go down for it. You're the new one and all suspicion will fall on you. I did get some information but it'll take at least a day to verify it. So _think._"

I'd gone frozen-still on the last step when Robin had turned back, muscles jumping tense. Dammit, he wasn't going to _hit_ me and I _knew_ that but he was so much like Niko in a temper right now; it was the control in the anger, the way he moved sharp and quick and smooth. He and Nik were both fighters, warriors, it made sense that they moved the same way. I swallowed hard and tried to replay yesterday. Where had the revenant stood? Where had be come from when he'd slunk over? I focused on an area hidden by dusty, empty crates. "Fuck. Over here."

Behind the crates was a messy conglomeration of blankets, empty bottles, spilled cards, and other mounds of discarded garbage. The employee lounge. One blanket was a little off from the others. In the midst of the wool nest was half a long-desiccated human leg. Bite-marks were evident in the long-dead limb and graveyard dirt was a litter beneath it. I pointed with disgust, the smell of the decay and the revenant strong in my nose. Robin nodded, ignored the leg, and showed the blade under a fold of cloth.

"Let's go," he said, wiping his hands on his pants without a single wince for fashion ruination.

"They won't...fingerprints? Smell?" I asked, hoping it could only be so simple.

"Do you smell me?" he challenged, turning to me again.

As a matter of fact, I didn't. "No. Neat trick." No forest-green-sex-musk of puck, only cologne and spice. It wasn't too different from his usual cologne which was why I hadn't really noticed until now that his own personal smell was missing under it.

"It's a special mixture. I've been wearing it since this whole debacle started. I prefer to stay nameless and scentless until all of this passes. I'm a survivor." He moved towards the door quickly, limping. I followed and watched the tense lines of his back.

"Yeah. Yeah, you are," I agreed, remembering what Darkling had thought of him. Self-serving, a damn good sense of self-preservation. But luckily for me and Niko, Robin also had a kind and generous heart. He glanced back at me, and his green eyes were harsh and uncompromising. A survivor...who'd come to help me when I called for it. I offered him a wan grin as we came out into the dimly lit day again.

"Don't waste any tears on the succubus," he offered, as we walked down the street. "She'd killed more humans in her long life than you could begin to count. A predator falls. It's the way of the world."

I hadn't been going to cry over her at all. I nodded. "Law of the jungle?" I returned, dryly.

"If you want to be cliched about it." Robin sighed wearily and rubbed at the weeping clawmarks on his neck.

" 'We be of one blood, thou and I'," I quoted, and Robin looked at me with some surprise, before he smiled unexpectedly, the anger melting away.

" 'My kill shall be thy kill if ever thou art hungry'," he finished, and it sent a chill down my spine suddenly. What a promise between monsters, even tame ones like Robin and I. What a promise. "Very well, Mowgli. Let's get something to drink. Several somethings, in fact, and I'll tell you what I've learned."

Goodfellow usually chose bars that reflected his personality, upscale and pretentious. This time he thre image to the wind and picked the first one we came across. We lucked out. It was dark, as all good bars are, but it was clean - from what I could tell. Plants were everywhere...hanging in baskets, creeping over the tables, casting branches towards the ceiling. And I'd have sworn there was a bird on every one of those branches. Parrots, finches, parakeets...and a shitload of others I couldn't identify. I wasn't much on our fine-feathered, jet-force-crapping friends. These seemed well behave enough, only chirping or squawking occasionally...well, until one of them saw me. It let out a warning cry, and for a moment the room echoed with bird alarm calls. I was used to that, but after the first alarm, they all stopped and went back to behaving normally. I shook my head as I took a spot at the bar, and checked the pretzel bowl for suspicious white streaks.

"Weird place," I commented.

"Bacchus be damned," Robin groaned. "It's a peri bar. Just my luck. My catastrophic, bowel-churning luck."

Before I could ask what the hell a peri was, the bartender came over...wings and all. Dove grey barred with silver, they were tucked neatly against his back. In a black T-shirt and jeans with short wavy black hair, he looked like your typical Mario from Queens. The wings could be a gimmick of the bar and stuffed in a locker before he headed home. Could be, but apparently weren't. Stopping opposite us, his round black eyes fixed on Goodfellow and he said without preamble, "Ishiah wants to talk to you."

"I don't remember asking you what Ishiah wanted," Robin responded in a bored tone. "Two beers with a whiskey back."

The peri's wings rustled in annoyance, and without further comment he moved down the bar to fill the order. "What's a peri?" I asked. Wings, feathers, nah. It couldn't be...could it? I'd seen some damn weird shit, especially lately, but surely not. "They're not angels, are they?"

Robin rolled his eyes with disgust. "At least come up with an original theory." The alcohol arrived. As the peri slid the glasses in front of us, he opened his mouth to speak again. Robin beat him to the punch. Holding up a fingers, he said, "Don't." Then he pointed the same finger down the bar. "Go."

Shedding a few disgruntled feathers, the peri hesitated, then obeyed with a scowl. There were other customers waiting to be served, oblivious humans and creatures as odd as any peri. "Overgrown cockatoo," Robin muttered. Not wasting any time, he did his shot, my shot, then chugged half his beer. I grabbed mine and slid it out of reach. If he was paying, I wanted my damn beer. Setting his mug back down, he said with reproof, "I know both you and Niko do research. Hours upon hours. Do you retain any of that information at all?"

I took a healthy swig of my beer. "Nik's the one with the eidetic memory, not me. Hell, you_ know_ Nik's the walking encyclopedia. I've never heard of a peri. Now what are they? Not angels?"

Robin shook his head in disgust and finished his beer. "Yes. That's exactly what they are. And on Fridays they have potluck with St. Nick, the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairy," he answered, sarcasm dripping from the words. Seeing the expression that dawned on my face, he raised a single brown eyebrow. "What gods-forsaken idea has just spawned in the ignorant muck you call a mind?"

I grinned at him, brightly. "Wait 'till I tell Nik that angels are real and so's the Cadbury bunny. I _knew_ the Cadbury bunny was real. I love those eggs."

Robin stared at me blankly, horror and laughter warring in his eyes. After a long minute he put his head down on the bar and started laughing. I joined him, because hell, why not? He laughed and laughed and at last sat there with shoulders slumped before he lifted his head and gave me a wry and grateful look. He straightened, shaking his head, then leaned over the bar and snagged a bottle of whiskey. He poured himself a glass with a liberal hand. I stuck to my beer.

"Hermes, blow me, I never can tell if you're _serious_ when you say things like that." He slammed another shot. "Part of your mysterious charm, hmm?" The glance he slid me was teasing. I went along with it, because it felt right.

"Damn straight." I sipped my beer. It was good, nutty and rich. "So. The succubus. Give me all the filthy, filthy details."

Robin snorted, recognizing his own words from earlier. "Very well. The crown; she'd seen it. She'd worn it. And she was not particularly impressed by it. It didn't compliment her colouring." He looked down at the blue dried on his shirt. "Obviously."

Jewels for the sex-toy. Flay's hunch had been right. Oh so close, but now the succubus was dead. I grimaced and looked at Robin. "Well, where is it?"

"Normally, in Cerberus's penthouse."

"Penthouse?"

"Where did you think he lived? In a doghouse?" he commented, cynically. "He's a Kin boss. That tends to keep you in kibble and wall-to-wall carpet. But that is neither here nor there. The crown is now in Cerberus's car, lucky for you. If we can believe what the snake said."

"If, of course." Robin had said it earlier; all snakes were liars.

He raised a hand for another beer.

I sipped my own. "Cerberus has three cars that I know of. A limo and two town cars." None of which had been at the warehouse today. Flay had used one the previous night to dispose of what was left of Fenrik's body. He probably would have taken it somewhere to clean it up. Can't dump a corpse without detailing the car the next day - now that was the law of the jungle right there. As for the others, Cerberus had probably taken the limo this morning with some of the other wolves following in the town car.

"Think you can stay under for at least another day?" Robin asked, taking the new beer the bartender passed over.

"Sure. Nik says I can, so it must be true," I joked, but it tasted like truth. Niko had told me I could do this - despite how I felt, I could do it. "I'll manage."

Robin gave me a funny look, then smiled. "You are different from before."

"How?" I wanted to know, sipping my beer.

"It's hard to explain," he mused, and finished off the his new beer. Up, down, bang against the bar. He stared at the empty glass a moment, then glanced at me. "You seem more...decisive. More sure of yourself."

Hell, I had him fooled. I wasn't certain this wasn't going to end in disaster. "Well, I'm not hiding from me anymore. You changed that - no don't_ look_ at me like that, stop feeling so damn guilty about it, Robin. It's okay. Really." I scowled at him, because I _meant_ that. It was okay. "It helped. I knew exactly who and what I was and that's what kept him...Darkling...from getting all of me. It's still helping. So stop feeling guilty. Or I'll pour my beer over your head and that's a really bad waste of good beer."

Robin laughed, but I could still see a faint shadow in his eyes. Well. It'd do for now. "It would be a waste of beer. Finish it and let's quit this place before I come down with a raging case of histoplasmosis."

I did, and we got up to walk out. Robin still had the bottle of whiskey in hand. The bartender said sharply, "That's thirty bucks."

"Put it on Ishiah's tab," Robin returned derisively. He lifted the bottle of whiskey. "This too. It's the least of what that bastard owes me."

"Who's Ishiah? Don't tell me you know one of the Biblical prophets. That'd just get too weird," I told him, as we climbed the stairs to the street.

Robin laughed again. "I've known all the Biblical prophets. And met Jesus too. But no, Ishiah is a peri, and someone almost as annoying as you." On the last stair, his injured leg buckled and he caught himself on my shoulder. I stood braced until he steadied himself, wordlessly. He patted my shoulder in silent thanks. I didn't wince as he hit the edge of a deep bruise Niko had given me - the rill of pain was nothing I wasn't used to. Robin paused, and took a sip of the whiskey. "I'm going home to take a hot shower and mourn my favorite shirt. Hold my calls."

I tipped my head back and stared up at the darkly overcast sky. It was going to rain, and soon - I could smell it over the city smog. Damp and electrically-charged air, ozone and wildness in the wind. I turned back to Robin, and offered him a smile. "Thanks, Robin. For all you've done."

Robin looked at me thoughtfully, and took a long pull at his whiskey. Surfacing, he nodded, and the smile he gave me was small and honest and tempered with an immortal's lifetime of sorrow and wisdom. It was an answer so huge my little paltry thanks didn't deserve it. My and Niko's deception didn't deserve it. Hell, I wasn't sure _I_ deserved it.

The wind whipped up the street and I could taste the rain coming.

Wordlessly, Robin and I walked side-by-side back to the hostel I was staying in. I didn't know why he was walking with me, but I enjoyed the company. I didn't ask - words seemed ridiculous right now, after that smile and the honesty between us.

As we neared the hostel I could see Niko standing on the sidewalk. His long leather duster was flapping around his knees and his braid swaying heavily. He was looking for us, and turned to watch our approach with a little smile on his lips. There was someone else on the sidewalk, walking his way, and as they drew closer to Niko I recognized who it was: Marvin, the incubus from Niko's illegal chop shop job. Marvin, whose face was twisted into a rictus of rage and who was pulling a gun out from under his coat, aiming at Niko. I think I shouted - I'm not sure, it might have been Robin.

Warned either by the shout, our faces, or some inner instinct of danger, Niko whirled and ducked. Lightning cracked across the sky and the thunder nearly hid the retort of the gun as Marvin shot. The wind blowing in my face brought me Marvin's outraged shout, nearly lost in the tail end of the thunder. "You killed her! You damn bastard, you killed my Lilith! Fucking-"

Niko had swept low under the gunshots and drawn his katana. Even as Marvin tried to track him, shooting again, Niko darted in close, silvery blade reflecting the next lightning strike - two slashes, almost impossible to see in their swiftness. Marvin staggered, his throat slit, Niko's blade lodged between his ribs. With a choking cough he went down, gun dropping from his limp hand. Niko let him slide off the blade and stepped back, a light spray of cobalt blood across his cheek.

He looked at me and Robin, and his grey eyes were wide, lips parted in an almost childish expression of surprise.

It started to rain.

Once inside and safely in the room, I watched Niko wash the blood off his face with mixed apprehension and dread. "Lilith is dead?" I asked him. "Marvin said you killed her." I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer. It wasn't too likely Marvin would have been mistaken, now was it? But would Niko...?

"I don't know. I guess she must be, but Cal, I haven't been back there since we left. I haven't contacted Lilith in weeks. I've only seen Marvin at work. I don't know how...he must have been following me." Niko looked - and sounded - rattled, still. He looked at me with his face washed clean and water beaded thickly in dark blonde lashes. "I must have gotten careless, I'm sorry."

Careless, and drunk in the middle of the afternoon. He reeked heavily of alcohol, but when Robin offered him the bottle of whiskey, Niko took a long pull from it. Robin took the chair and Niko and I took the bed. "Don't give him any more," I told Robin, and looked at Niko cautiously. "You're drunk. You're fuckin' smashed and it's not even past three. What the hell, Nik?"

Niko shook his head. "Just...a bad day. A really fuckin' bad day. And now it's worse. I'm sorry, Cal."

"Oh damn. You got triggered, didn't you?" My heart clenched, worry spiking through me. "What was it? How bad was it?"

"Nothing. Goddamn nothing, just something a customer at the shop said. She didn't even look like Sophia, or sound like her much. Smoker's rasp. It was...nothing, a throwaway comment and I just shut down." Niko put his face in his hands, for a moment, then ran his hands back through his hair, pulling stands loose from his braid. He was still too frazzled, upset; I knew that gesture and everything it said about his mental state and it made my chest ache. "I left after lunch. Snapped out of it a little while ago, in the Blue Iguana."

I winced. That wasn't going to be good for Niko's job. I reached out and set my hand on his knee, comforting. I was here, he was here, it was all going to be okay. "So worse than usual."

"Yeah." Niko shook his head, and closed his eyes. "And Marvin. God, I want to call Lilith but it's not wise if she _is_ dead."

"It would not be," Robin commented. "I can check for you." There was a question in his face, though, and I could see it. "Are you...alright, Niko?"

Niko laughed a little, a drunken too-loud laugh, and swayed when he shook his head. "Will be. Haven't checked out for months. Forgot how I hate it."

"If you'd just have consistent triggers," I grumbled, but it was an old familiar tease, and Niko leaned heavily on my shoulder. That was good. That was him reaching outside himself, a good sign. Some of the worry in me eased. I looked up at Robin. "I know what'll set me off. Niko never does. One day he'll be fine, the next day something random that's barely related will give him an episode."

"Episode...?" Robin prompted, raising an eyebrow.

"Niko disassociates, bad. He did it while I was gone during Everything," I explained.

"Ah. I was unaware it was a recurring issue," Robin mused, sipping the whiskey thoughtfully.

"S'not usually." Niko reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Was really bad back when it started. Not so bad now...like I said, it's been months since Everything. That was when I last did it so bad..."

And he'd had damn good reason then, I thought. I reached behind him, tugged lightly on his braid. His head nodded to it, and he rested his cheek on my head. I sat straight under his weight, supporting him. He just needed a little while to get himself sorted back out. That was all. Didn't mean I didn't wish I could've been there when he'd been freaking out and _needed_ me, but I was here now and he still needed me.

"Can I ask how these episodes present?" Robin was asking. "Just in case."

Niko's response was a snort. "Same way I was during Everything. Hardly talk, don't feel anything. Hard to remember what I did while I was gone."

"Don't feel...that was why you were walking on a broken leg, wasn't it?" Robin exclaimed.

"It wasn't broken at first," Niko protested, but without any heat. "But yeah. I knew it was fucked up but it didn't hurt and I couldn't really do anything about it. S'like...I'm in another room, somebody else has my body."

I didn't really do that. I'd had episodes where nothing felt_ real_, like it was all a dream, but I was always still me. I couldn't imagine what it was like for Niko - but I knew he hated it, hated being out of control. He'd been around sixteen when it had all started, and for weeks he wouldn't talk to anyone at all, wouldn't even scream at Sophia. But he'd talk to me, late at night, in quiet breathy whispers, about how everything was coming apart at the seams in his own head. It wasn't like we could've gotten him any professional help, not with our lives, but sometimes...sometimes I wondered. Would it have changed anything? Would it have made him better? Would he never have started beating me? I wouldn't ever know, I guess. That's life; you never know what could have been. Only what is.

"So if you see Nik wandering around and looking like a zombie, and he doesn't say hi, put him somewhere safe and talk to him," I advised. I had no idea if Robin would be able to get to him. I could always, always get Niko to come back out, but that was me.

"I'll remember," Robin promised, and saluted us with the last of the whiskey before he drank it down.


	11. Chapter Eleven: Hunt

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used here!

This chapter is short, half the size of several of the others, but it fit best this way.

Thanks to Comuterale for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to SensiblyTainted, Genesblues, and halesgirl101 for reviewing!

Genesblues, you are totally correct on the first guess. Excellent! I reward you a drabble of your choice for remembering that Evil!Niko is a liar. Also, Cal appreciates the hugs.

* * *

_**Chapter Eleven:** Hunt_

* * *

_Steel unload, fire burn_  
_We the animals take control_  
_Hear us now, clear and true_  
_Wretches and kings, we come for you!_  
-"Wretches and Kings," Linkin Park

* * *

It was a nice evening. The sky was clear, the wind was fresh from yesterday's storm. There was a huge sliver of the moon hanging in the sky, pumpkin orange and magnified in the warm spring air. I could imagine stretching out a hand and touching it. The wind blew by, tugging happily at my clothes, my hair, my dangling sneaker laces...as I dangled four stories up from Cerberus's grip around my throat.

My day hadn't started out quite this crappy. I'd spent it in the warehouse, keeping my head down. It was a good idea, especially with all the flying body parts. Robin had been right. Upon arriving in his limo, Cerberus had pinned the succubus's death on the revenant quickly enough. The rest of the day had been spent mopping up the mess and staying out of Cerberus's way. His mood, needless to say, wasn't good. Not that there had been undying love between him and the succubus; she'd been convenient sex and no more. But he'd _owned_ her, and someone had dared pick his pocket. No Alpha was going to appreciate that. The sounds that had come from his office at various intervals had most of the wolves lurking by the door for a quick getaway. Roars of rage and the sound of furniture shattering against the walls didn't make for ideal working conditions. And then there had been the silence. No one knew whether to be relieved or even more panicked than they already were.

_I_ knew - it was like Niko. Loud, not so bad. Quiet, run like hell, your ass was gonna wish you'd never got up this morning.

Finally, the day had passed. We survived, though me and poor damn Mishka had serious doubts as to whether we wanted to. There were no jobs lined up for the coming hours and eventually the place had emptied. Cerberus remained in his office, but he'd calmed down enough to do a little cleanup of his own. I couldn't believe revenants tasted that great, but to each his own. At least he wasn't rolling in it. He would eat, fine; I would search his cars for the crown. Simple. And it had really seemed that way until he'd caught me midsearch, pulled me from the car, then tossed me bodily over it.

"Bastard thief." The words had followed me over the car. Apparently it was alright to steal _for_ Cerberus, but not _from_ him. It was when he attempted to show me just how not alright it was that I got up off my bruised and roadrashed ass and ran like hell.

I left the crown on the floor of the warehouse. It had been in the limo, after all, under the seat. What was valuable enough to risk my life and ransom a little redheaded girl had been discarded like trash. I could almost picture the succubus throwing it down in a fit of spoiled pique; the jewels weren't large enough, precious enough, it wasn't the right colour. It wasn't flashy at all: a simple circle of reddish gold set with the occasional onyx, it wasn't especially feminine or attractive. In fact, it was almost...utilitarian. For just a moment, as I'd held it, I'd though I'd felt it pulse under my hand - a single warm heartbeat. But then I'd been caught.

And you're only ever in trouble when you get caught.

I'd left the crown and run in the only direction open to me - up. The stairs to the roof were definitely not a good choice, but Cerberus had left me little choice. As I'd charged up the stairs, I'd worked out Niko's special knife and dropped it over the railing. Three stories up was good enough to break the glass, right? I'd hoped so, as I'd burst out onto the roof, body charged with adrenaline, the skin on my back tight and prickling with the knowledge of the predator behind me. Two leaps and he'd been on me, snatching me up by the throat.

Not too long ago, climbing a Ferris wheel in the dark, I'd thought I didn't have a fear of heights. Right now, I dizzily decided I still didn't - I was just afraid of the sudden stop at the bottom. Four stories up. Jesus, my ass was so dead.

"An Auphe." "I would have been better off hiring a piranha." The heads weren't speaking the distorted words to me. No, they spoke to one another - muzzles nearly touching, fangs half again as long as my hand dripping dark brown saliva that fell like rain. Cerberus was easily twice as large as any wolf I'd seen so far, maybe three times. He'd retained just enough control of his human form to stay upright. His shoulders hulked, mountain wide, under fur so black it nearly blended with the night. He towered almost eight feet tall; the chest was broad and made to store oxygen for that massive body. Legs as thick as my waist were banded with muscle that could propel their owner unbelievable lengths. The fingers that curled around my neck were rough with callous pads thickened from years of running. The claws were jetty, curved like fishhooks, and every bit as long as the fingers. They were also hooked into my neck; I could feel the blood trickling down my cold skin. It wasn't much, barely a teaspoon, but it didn't raise my hopes. What Cerberus had in store for me wasn't as simple (elegant) as a torn-out throat.

Abruptly, the hand around my throat shook me hard enough my spine howled in protest and I choked for breath, spots dancing in my vision. But through them I could still see Cerberus, looming like an old-world god, his breath a hot stench of raw flesh and spilled blood. A predator searching for the softest and most tasty portion. But I'd lived with Niko for all my life. I was part Auphe - I was a predator in my own right, and I'd had worse bruises from the loving hand of my brother.

Even dizzy and dangling from a monster's hand, I was still damn lethal.

I pulled the Desert Eagle from under my jacket with every inch of speed I had in me. Cerberus was starting to speak again, change-defiled voice a deep resonating growl, but I felt like something had snapped loose in my head. I had damn good incentive - I'd seen what he'd done to Fenrik. I'd seen and smelled what he'd done to the revenant today. Those things were damn hard to kill. The could regrow any part of themselves, including their head. To kill them, you practically needed a tree shredder. Cerberus had done the job with teeth and claws, and he'd done it in under fifteen seconds; it took Niko at least a full minute, when he wasn't taking his time and having fun.

Cerberus was quick, but I was faster. The Desert Eagle in my hand had taken down Boaz; it would have to do the same for Cerberus. I didn't think I'd kill this monster on my own, no, but if I could put enough holes in him, it'd slow him down enough for Niko to come rescue my skinny ass.

I held the trigger down. Four shots bucked off before Cerberus staggered...and dropped me._ Fuck_ that hadn't been in my plans.

Reflexes snapped and I barked my shin on the metal edge of the warehouse roof as I _moved_, faster than I ever had, my heartbeat ringing in my ears and deafening every other sound. One shin hung, the other dangled as I threw my weight forward, gun hand smashing into the asphalt in a closed fist, the other slapping open on the surface. For a wild moment I knew I wasn't going to make it, hanging poised, balance rapidly shifting.

Then Cerberus reached down, grabbed me by the arms, and kindly pulled me up. One giant misshappen hand on each wrist, he lifted me high. Then, like an evil-minded child with a struggling fly, he began to pull. The stitches in my right arm popped free and the pressure increased instantly to an unbearable scream of muscles and tendons pushed far past their limits. He was going to rip me apart like he'd done to the revenant and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.

But someone else could.

A pale blur hit Cerberus from the side, bowling us both over. Teeth flashed yellow in the moonlight before they sank deep into the nearest black throat. Blood surged free, turning Flay's white coat to wine. I landed on my side, hard, and kicked to roll upright, reading my gun. Flay was an unlikely ally, just as monstrous as Cerberus; just as he was not fully human, Flay was not fully wolf either. Instead he was a rangy man-wolf, upright but crouched, covered with fur yet retaining vaguely human hands and feet. The shoulder-length hair had become a bristling mane, but the eyes were the same; murderous red and bright with hatred.

"Not stupid." The white head rose then fell, ripping at flesh. "_Not_ stupid!"

Flay's Alpha had underestimated him one too many times. I hadn't made the same mistake, but did I think Flay could take Cerberus down by himself? Nope. Which was why as soon as I had a good shot I was pulling the trigger again. Enough hollowpoint magnum rounds would eventually make an impression on even the biggest wolf, and I put eight rounds in his center mass. Unlike Flay, Cerberus had gone all wolf; pure in form, immense and implacable in his rage. Rolling on top of Flay, the wolf planted all four feet on the ground and dove at the white throat with one pair snapping jaws. The other head turned to gaze at me over the slope of the shoulder. Dilated pupils turned orange eyes to ebony; he measured me up and found me wanting. Part Auphe I might be, but I was still too human to be a threat to Cerberus.

I was about to fucking change his mind.

Slamming the empty Desert Eagle back into its holster, I bolted across the roof; Flay had saved his throat from savaging by closing his teeth around Cerberus's lips, but that wouldn't last long. I yanked my KA-BAR knife from its sheath, and pounced on the broad black back. My free hand grabbed a handful of fur, and I jammed the blade deep into muscle and flesh. It grated against bone. Wolves were durable as hell, and Cerberus was proving to be tough as any, but a severed spinal cord was going to give anyone second thoughts. Speaking of seconds, that wasn't my only knife, just my biggest. I planted my bootknife midway up his back. With no idea where the spinal cord split off, I was more than willing to work my way up and find out.

I was grinning, wild on adrenaline and the sudden, gut-wrenching drive of_ hunt_ when Cerberus threw me off. My plan hadn't worked entirely - Cerberus was still using one hind leg, and that one alone was good enough to propel him into me like a freight train. I had a third and final knife in hand, though, and I could still feel the grin stretching my lips as crushing black paws landed on either side of me. I wasn't afraid anymore, not really; I felt like laughing, giddy and reckless, when I ducked under the snapping jaws and drove my blade up into one black throat. A pulsing arc of blood sprayed loose: carotid artery. I reared back to strike again, tasting the blood that splashed across my face, when Flay hit Cerberus from the side again and they rolled free. I scrambled up to my feet, covered in blood and drool and focused on one thing only; the kill.

Niko flashed by me in a pale blonde blur, sword flickering. He dove into the snarling pile of bestial violence without hesitation. Well, I couldn't let him have _all_ the fun, now could I? Oh fuck no. I had the blood in my mouth and I wasn't stopping until there was flesh there too. I ran towards the fight, watching as Niko raised his sword high and plunged it deep into one skull. Cerberus was now as singular as he'd considered himself to be. One heavy head was impaled, the katana's length punching through skull, brain, and jaw and down into the roof below. Flay, bleeding from numerous bites, writhed free from one giant paw and slashed deeply along Cerberus's ribs.

And I? I was ready to take this fucker down.

The Alpha reared up, ripping the sword free from the asphalt. The deceased twin's head lolled with the motion, blood and brain matter dripping from the gaping jaws. Cerberus was dead. Long live Cerberus...not.

He was still up in the air when I hit him and slashed his throat from ear to ear, so deeply my knifeblade ground against bone. Everything vital to life gone in one fell swoop, and I was leaping backwards already when the monster crashed back to the rooftop. He struggled mightily to get up, breath choking through bubbling blood, but with only one set of legs working it was a futile fight. Apparently each head had controlled half of the body, and with one half dead, well.

I was laughing, I realized, watching Cerberus die. I was laughing, and Flay threw back his head and howled, and Niko laughed too. We'd hunted down the beast and his blood was on our hands and - in my and Flay's case - hot in our mouths. Damn, _damn_ did it feel good.

Cerberus changed back into his human form as he died - that part of the legend was true. A naked heap crumbled in a tangle of muscular limbs and cold metal. An unsettling quirk of chance had caused the two heads to roll towards eachother, and rest forehead to forehead in death. Brothers until the end. Brothers, yes.

Niko moved closer to me, smiling, eyes bright with the love of the kill. I understood that cold gleam in his eyes, the death's head grin pulling at his lips. "A good fight," he breathed, and reached into his pocket, producing the crown. I'd forgotten about it, completely and entirely. The sight of it shocked me, knocked me out of that wild, exhilarating place in my head. "With a good prize."

I reached out to take it with one hand slick with blood. The metal was cool under my fingertips, without the heat I thought I'd sensed earlier. I turned it one way, then the other. Nothing beautiful, nothing richly ornamented, nothing really worth risking a life over. A trinket. Niko nodded, and went to retrieve his sword. I wiped my knife down, sheathed it, and turned the circlet over in my bloody hands. A delicate little relic of the past, smeared with blood. It was nothing.

And then it was literally nothing. My hands were empty.

He'd come out of nowhere, like all bad dreams do. He must've been perched on the side of the building, waiting. They were good at that. Waiting. One moment I stood alone, and the next he flowed up over the edge to stand before me, a horrifically distorted reflection.

I froze. He stood there before me, simply stood, as if they hadn't stopped following me for months now. Transparently white skin, narrow face, burning molten eyes. Flaxen hair lifted on a nonexistent breeze, and a thousand needle teeth were bared. It was a sight I'd never hoped to see again. "Traitor." The voice was flat and harsh, the dry rasp of scales over stone. "I've been searching for you." He crowned himself with the gold circlet that had been so easily snatched from my startled fingers before he flashed a taloned hand toward my throat. Too fast to dodge. "High and low." His claws punctured my skin and blood ran freely. "Far and wide." He leaned his face close to mine until his cold fetid breath washed over my skin. "Here and now."

No. They'd always known where I was. Just as I always knew where they were. It had spoken in English - I answered in Auphe. "Traitor yourself, cousin. My family has dealt wrongly with me. I have repaid."

He hissed, and answered in his mother tongue. No, _our_ mother tongue. "Lies and deceit, tainted cousin. You betrayed your own." His claws tightened in my flesh, a catch-all deterrent. But I knew if he hadn't killed me yet... I heard Niko swear low and angry behind me. A strand of the Auphe's colourless hair brushed my cheek; it was slippery and burned, a track of cold fire on my human flesh.

"One for many, I know the proverb. But Darkling would never have served. I have run the hunts, cousin, and you treated me as not your own." I knew he could feel my heart pounding in my chest, smell my fear...but I was angry, too. The words came boiling free, struck from a place inside my head that had come unlocked during the fight - the fight where I had moved with the speed and reflexes of the Auphe and their lust for the kill.

"One for many, but you have killed many for your one," was the angry return.

"Then call it even, my debt repaid," I snarled back. "The blood is spilt." It was over, the phrase implied. It was done. If only it were that simple.

For a moment, a long moment, I could feel the claws in my throat. So easy to kill me.

Too easy.

Nails were ripped free from my flesh with callous efficiency. Red eyes roiled with disgust and a reluctant recognition of what I was. What I had become. I had learned well while I was with them; I knew them, and I was one of them. That could not be denied.

"Do you think it should be so easy for you, cousin?" he hissed, and reached up to trace the circlet with a bloodstained talon. "It shall not be. We will watch you. Every moment, of every day."

For a moment I despaired. Then I knew, I _knew_ exactly what to say, and I smiled as I said it. "And when I call the hunt, cousin, you will hunt with me."

The Auphe's eyes brightened, and his laugh was full of contempt. But his answer was _truth_. "Call a hunt worthy of us and we will come," he sneered. "And then the blood will be spilt, cousin."

He took a step back, graceful as a striking snake, then another. With a grin wide and cold as the barren winter sky, he balanced on the edge of the roof and plummeted off.

Niko swore suddenly, right by my ear, and I flinched. I looked up at him, and he was peering anxiously at my throat. I shook my head, and held up my hands. I felt like I should be shaking, I was so rattled. But my hands were steady. My breath came even and easily. Then I realized something very, very important.

"Fuck. He took the damn crown with him."


	12. Chapter Twelve: Quest

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used here!

From the baseball information Cal gives, this sets this story in early May of 2007. Whew.

Also, he insinuates here that he's read the Sleeping Beauty trilogy by Anne Rice under the penname of A. N. Roquelaure. I really, honestly, truly _did not need to know__ that, Cal!_ (Headdesk) Your taste in BDSM porn is _not my concern!_

Cal: (Grins) What you should be flipping out over more is the fact that I mentioned it to Niko and he didn't so much as twitch.

...Cal, just go away. Just...go far away right now.

(Headdesk) ANYWAY.

Thanks to Comuterale for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to halesgirl101 and SensiblyTainted for reviewing!

* * *

_**Chapter Twelve:** Quest_

* * *

_Like I need to defend my own innocence  
__So what, I did it, I admit it, and I'm pleading the fifth  
__One more, anthem for the know-it-all  
__I won't be standing up for long  
__I better learn how to crawl, learn how to crawl  
__In ten minutes I'll be laying out flat on the floor  
_-"Flat on the Floor," Nickelback

* * *

We regrouped in the hostel room I'd been renting. Flay was ruining the bedspread by bleeding liberally all over it. Niko was ruining one of the cheap threadbare towels by mopping up my neck. And Robin was ruining the carpet by pacing a hole in it. Me, I was ruining nothing, except for the fact that I'd ruined our entire scheme by letting my murderous monster cousin walk off with our prize. Niko was pissed, Robin was incredulous, and Flay was being miserably sick on the rug. Blood doesn't sit well on the stomach in large quantities, even for us predators.

"And you let the thrice-damned," Robin blurted something in Greek, "_walk away with it._"

His ranting was getting on my nerves. He'd said that at least three times, with various insulting phrases substituted for "Auphe." Niko savagely pinched the back of my neck, lips in a firm line. I bared my teeth at him angrily - Robin was here and I couldn't sock Niko in the nose like I wanted to. "Robin, shut the hell up," I growled.

"No, I need him to talk," Niko snapped back, anger underlining his voice and hot in his grey eyes. "You said there were once_ two_ of them, a matching set. Correct?"

"Yes. The Calabassa, they were called. But that was thousands of years ago." Robin paced another turn on the carpet.

"If one survived, then the other probably has as well," Niko reasoned, ruthlessly. "All is not yet lost. We just need to find it, and soon. From the message me left me, Caleb is getting impatient."

"What message?" Robin wanted to know. Flay glanced at Niko too, sudden worry in his red eyes.

"A box full of red curls," Niko answered, grimly. "I did promise her mother I'd return her in one piece." Not to mention the Mafia would probably off us if we didn't come through with our end of the deal. But apparently Niko was not mentioning that to Robin."Now. The crown. Who else do we know that might be able to give us a lead on it?"

The mention of George made my stomach roil, but I was too pissed off at Niko to really care. He kept pinching me, little quick flicks while Robin's back was turned. Every pinch was a promise of worse to come. Normally, I would have dreaded it. Fresh off the fight, with the Auphe's words still ringing in my head, I just felt fed up with this kind of shit. I was done. I wanted to eat something and go to sleep. We'd fought, we'd won, my family had screwed us over, and I was damn tired. I lifted my chin so Niko could stick the last band-aid on my throat, covering the holes the Auphe had left in my skin.

Robin shook his head. "I don't know. I need time to look."

"Time is a precious commodity right now," Niko grumbled, eyes narrowed. He was well and truly _pissed_ and I knew tonight was going to be _ugly._

"So it is," Robin returned, and there was a wary readiness in his tone. Something that said '_back down._' Like hell that would work, Niko would only take it as a challenge. "It can't be helped. I'll talk to the few leads I have left. I'll call you tomorrow with what I find."

"Right." Niko's lips were pressed in a thin line, and when Robin turned away he pinched the back of my arm hard enough to make my eyes water. "Flay, I don't think you'll be up to helping us yet. Cal, you've got this room for one more night, yes?"

I nodded, shooting him an ugly glare. "Right. Then I have to pay again."

Niko nodded just once, and took a deep breath through his nose. "Flay can stay here for the night. Cal, you'll come with me to my hotel and we'll think of who we can contact. Flay, if you think of anyone by morning, come tell us." Niko told Flay where he was staying. I watched him move. His hotel room, just us. Brothers.

Brothers, bruises, and blood.

It didn't happen right away. We showered, we ate supper, we got ready for bed. Niko was tight, sharp, angry. It made me nervous and that made me angry, because Niko hadn't said or done anything, hadn't touched me. He was waiting. He was goddamn waiting for me to slip up, because he wasn't going to lay a hand on me without reason. The moment I answered wrong, forgot a chore, hell, bent one of his books wrong, he was going to light into me and it was going to fuckin' hurt. I'd waited out his tempers before. Been on my very best behavior, gotten away with it, and usually by morning he wasn't so angry anymore. It worked. But I didn't know if I wanted to do that, if I could stand the strain tonight. Sometimes it was just better to get the damn thing over with so I could fucking _breathe._

Niko threw my phone at me when I went and sat on the bed, after brushing my teeth. I caught it right before it hit me in the head; the impact stung my hand. "Fuckin' what?" I growled.

"Call Promise," he ordered, terse.

I hadn't expected that. "The hell? Why?"

Niko pinched the bridge of his nose, and said, "We need to find out about that second crown. I don't think she'll know a damn thing but it can't hurt. Invite her to lunch or something. Ask for a favor. Just fucking do it, twit."

"Asshat," I snapped back, but he had a point. Fuck him sideways with a rusty pocketknife for being_ right_. I dug around in my dufflebag and found the Western I'd bought that day - God it seemed forever ago. I pulled the card out, and called Promise's cell. She answered on the second ring.

"Hi, Promise. It's me." I knew she'd recognize my voice, if not the number. Robin had commented on my voice, calling it a "unique combination of peat whiskey and sarcastic snark." I had Sophia's beautiful voice, rich and low and sweet, but the snark was all my own. People hadn't paid Sophia so much for her fortunes, I'd thought once, but for the way she'd said them; even the most mundane fortune had sounded like a mystical promise spoken in her throaty velvet tones.

"Caliban. How unexpected." Promise was very polite. There was a beat of silence as I tried to figure out what to say. "Is everything alright?" she asked. She had a pretty voice, honey and tea, light and soft.

Niko was making his own phone call. I glared in his direction. "Not really. Uh, I gotta a favor to ask. See, Nik and I got this job. A friend of ours, a little girl, she's been kidnapped, and the monster that has her wants this damn ancient crown. I just...I need some help to know where to start looking. I don't really know why I called, I mean, I thought you might... I just..."

"She means something to you," Promise said, gently.

I wanted to vomit. Meant something, sure, but not the way Promise was thinking. "Yes. I don't know where else to even look for this damn thing."

"I'll help you, Caliban. If we could meet somewhere...?"

Niko, listening in, cleared his throat and held up a notepad. I squinted at it. "Yeah, uh, can you meet me tomorrow at Trattoria L'incontro? It's in Queens, on 31st Street. Is twelve noon too early?"

"It is not," she assured me. "I'll meet you there. Can you give me any other details, so I can search for it between now and the morning?"

I could hardly believe she'd bought the damn sob story. I hadn't been very believable; I felt sick, angry, so mixed up and shaken. "It's called the Calabassa. I have a drawing of it."

"The Calabassa. I'll look into it for you." She paused. "I hope your friend will be safe."

"I...I hope so too, Promise." God, I felt sick saying it but I still didn't want her to get hurt, not any more than I had hurt her already. She wasn't a friend, she was a victim, and all my guilt wanted her to be okay.

"Tomorrow, then." Promise hung up.

I hung up, and stared at my phone.

Then I threw it at Niko's head, and it was _on._

I was not limping when I when I met Promise for lunch. Neither was Niko, picking up his girlfriend Cindy for lunch at the same restaurant, albeit at a different table. Pride can do amazing things for you - so can secrets you can't let out. Niko gave no sign at all that I'd dislocated his kneecap last night, or bitten his bicep to the blood...repeatedly. I didn't show that my shoulder was wrenched, Niko's handprint bruised stark on my upper arm from where he'd grabbed and shaken me 'till my teeth rattled. I didn't show that my back had ladder-stripe bruises all the way from my hips to my shoulders where Niko had taken his belt to me, cuts along my ribs where the buckle had bitten in. We'd fought and screamed and cursed, and in the small dark hours of the morning had curled up back to back and slept in the same bed, anger gone cold again. Breakfast had been a slow affair with plenty of bruise ointment and antibiotics between us.

Slow, and stiff, but I met Promise with a smile, and handed her out of her limousine like any well-mannered monster should. She wore a heavy cloak to keep the sun off, but I was wearing slacks and a button-up. I was all dressed up for our lunch.

Like a goddamn double date, I'd sneered, and Niko had rolled his eyes and drawled Promise was way out of my league. I'd punched him in his bitten shoulder.

Niko had gotten reservations, though, and while I knew Cindy was paying for theirs, Niko was paying for mine and Promise's. Damn expensive information meeting, it was, but Promise was a lady and this was a strictly professional affair. How professional always equaled expensive, I didn't know. We were seated, the waiter rattled off an incredibly long list of choices, and then it was just me and Promise and some excellent rose wine.

"I was unaware you enjoyed wine," Promise murmured, sipping her own.

"Not a lot of it," I admitted. "I like the sweeter ones. So. About that crown."

Promise chuckled, her voice nearly lost under the hubbub. It was loud and crowded in here, like all good Italian restaurants were. I only knew where Niko was because I'd seen him come in; I hadn't done more than glance, but I was pretty sure Promise knew he was here, too. She hadn't reacted but I wasn't underestimating the vampire lady. She'd kick my butt and then suck my blood.

"So, how about those Yankees?" She shook her head and smiled. "Master of the conversational segue, I bow before you."

"The Yankees are doing pretty good this year. I think they'll do better now that they've got Roger Clemens signed on. He's a _damn_ good pitcher." I knew Promise hadn't really been asking for my opinion on baseball, but hell, I liked baseball. "I'm glad they've got him back, he did well in the previous seasons with them." I sipped my wine.

Promise looked surprised. "I was also unaware you liked baseball."

"Yeah. I was pitching at Major League speeds before I tore a ligament in my shoulder. Damn near had a baseball career. But that's life." Then, the Auphe had happened and I just didn't feel connected to that world any more. Baseball was mundane, safe, normal. I lived in a world where the homeless man on the street might actually be a monster waiting to rip your face off. Before I'd been taken by the Auphe, I'd believed Niko; we'd get away and live a normal kind of life.

Normal. Hah. Normal is really damn relative.

"So. Dig up anything on the crown?" I pressed again. Anxious, yes I was damn anxious about it because we needed that thing, not just for the ransom but also to save mine and Niko's butts from the Mafia.

Promise only gave me a quiet pitying look. She only knew about the kidnapping. I hated trying to keep my stories straight. Niko was better at this...but Promise was not meeting with him. She was meeting with poor little me and my sob story. "I'm afraid there wasn't much I could uncover in such a short time. Apparently the crown is so ancient that is has been mostly forgotten. I couldn't discover its origin, but the crown is actually one of a paired set. They were called the Calabassa. At one time they were both highly sought after. But that was thousands of years ago. They've apparently been long separated, and in this time, few have heard of them, no-one knows what they do, and no-one particularly wants them together or apart."

Very little that we hadn't heard already from Robin, but I was impressed. Promise worked fast. I rubbed a hand over my face as our food was delivered. Surprise, Promise wasn't eating much. "No-one except a sadistic bastard who'd steal a little girl," I breathed, and if my voice was shaky it was because I'd tried to do a damn sight worse to that same little girl and had nearly succeeded.

"I'm sorry, Caliban. I will keep looking." Promise leaned over the table and touched my hand - her nails were painted copper and her skin was cool and soft.

I ducked my head. "Th-thanks. I...I'll find a way to repay you."

"No, no. That's not necessary." I'd half expected that answer, because I was playing the same card on her that Niko had played on Robin, and I was doing it just as deliberately._ 'Unused to friends, please pity and give freebies.'_ Hell, it worked. And I was pretty damn sure I didn't want to be in her debt. She might take it out of my liver, or...something. The liver did something with blood, but my biology was hazy right now, filmed over with disuse and a faint glaze of alcohol.

I wasn't buzzed, not yet, but it was a good excuse not to think as I knocked back the last of my second glass.

The pasta I'd gotten was very good. Promise ate delicately, a few bites only, and a single glass of wine. She didn't offer to talk about anything at all, and I ate in silence. It was unnerving, but not too bad. I was feeling a little drained as far as emotions went; fighting with Niko did that to me. Too much, all at once, and I was tired and sore all over. But I was okay. It wasn't a bad day, not really, and it was sunshiny out. Too bad for her, perfect for me. I needed some sunshine in my life, even if it was only the damn weather. I drank my wine, ate my pasta, and thanked Promise again for her time and her help. She gravely wished me the best and said she'd call me if anything turned up. I paid the staggering bill, tipped the waiter, and walked Promise out to her waiting limo. I handed her in, watched her go, then made for the nearest carpark where I knew Niko had left our car.

I fell asleep in the front seat listening to La Roux, my mp3 player's volume only medium loud.

Niko opening the car door woke me. For a dizzy moment I didn't know where the fuck I was. Niko said something and the haze of panic eased. Rubbing my eyes, I asked, "Time is it?"

"Nearly two in the afternoon." Niko slid into the car and slammed the door. "I think it's about time I broke up with Cindy," he mused, squirming around in the seat to pull his keys from his back pocket.

"She extra chatty today?" I yawned. Niko didn't like it when they got too mouthy.

"No. She and her roommate are getting too daring. I'll quit while I'm ahead and not get involved in another murder investigation - I can't talk sense into her head." Niko started the car and backed out of his parking space. I leaned over and plugged my mp3 player up to the radio. Soundgarden was a good choice, I thought. Niko shook his head but didn't comment. "I'll probably do it this weekend."

"Gonna make her mad?" He usually did. I was familiar enough with the tune of his break-ups.

"If I can. God, I hate it when they cry." Obviously it didn't bother him_ too_ much, or he'd stop breaking with with them altogether. I yawned again. I felt hazy with sleep, comfortably warm on the edge of too-hot, and relaxed against the familiar ache of fresh bruises on my back. It felt normal, it felt right, and I let the music and Niko's further comments about Cindy wash over me. I was just about to fall asleep again when Niko's cell rang and startled us both.

With a quick glare for me at his ring-tone - a clip of Lambchop's "Song that Never Ends" - he fished his phone from his pocket, steadying the steering wheel with his knee. "Hello? Robin. You did? Good. Cal, if you don't stop humming that damn song I swear I'll swerve into oncoming traffic. Yes, Robin, we'll meet you at the hotel. Cal, I mean it."

He didn't really. He liked this car too much. But I quit humming anyway, satisfied with the exasperation in his tone. "But it's the song that never ends, Nik."

"I'll end _you_, snotball."

"Stupidhead." If we were going to be so mature. I grinned at him, sleepily, and grabbed the doorhandle as he swerved around a convertible.

"Retard." Niko glanced at me. "You're half asleep. I'll be damned. Maybe you should nap in a hot car more often."

"Helps," I grunted, squirming out of my lazy slouch. I hissed as it pressed on my back, bruises throbbing, but I didn't stop. Bruises never stopped me anymore. "What's Robin got?" I ignored the fact that Niko was doing a good twenty over the speed limit, and was probably about to do the real-life version of Frogger if that emo teenager ahead didn't hurry his ass across the street any faster.

"He thinks he has a contact that can give us more information, but he didn't sound happy about it." Niko shook his head.

Emo boy got his pasty ass off the street just in time. I shrugged. "Weird. Wake me when we get there." I leaned my head against the window. Niko's driving was best ignored on a crowded busy street so I didn't see how many close calls happened - for us or any pedestrians. I was pretty certain Niko wouldn't hit a human for shits and giggles, but accidents happened. Niko was not immune to accidents, either, as much as he'd like to think he was.

I dozed and listened vaguely to Niko start talking to himself. Well, talking to me, but I wasn't listening. He did that, when he was juggling too many balls in the air. It helped him sort things out properly, he said. He talked low and quiet, almost under his breath, and I drifted hazily and comfortably in and out of awareness.

I woke up when Niko tapped my arm. "Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty."

"If you try to French me I'll kick your ass," I muttered, groggily dragging myself awake.

Niko snorted. "What versions of Sleeping Beauty have _you_ been reading?"

"That vampire lady, Anne Rice, she wrote a lot of kinky shit." I sat up and unbuckled my seatbelt, stretching. "Owwwwwfffffuuuck my back."

"That's what you get for sleeping slouched like that," Niko retorted, and tossed my unplugged mp3 player in my lap before he opened the door and got out of the car. I leaned against the fake leather seat a moment longer, enjoying the warmth, before I got out myself, trying not to move stiffly. I slipped my mp3 player in my pocket as I walked up to Niko and Robin.

"Well, what's..." I had to stop to yawn. "...what's the news, Robin?"

Niko reached out and smoothed a hand over my hair. I swayed into him, and he kissed the top of my head, let his palm settle against the back of my neck. I stayed leaning against him for a few moments, less because I was that sleepy and more because his black coat was almost as warm as the car had been. He was comfortably affectionate again, easy to live with. He usually was, for a while after a solid beating.

"Not here. Have a good nap?" Robin asked, but his smile was a little strained and there were unhappy creases in his forehead.

"Yeah. Didn't dream about anything, for once." Niko nudged me away so he could start walking and I followed along, slouching, as we entered the hotel. I shrugged my shoulders, felt the bruises ache, and started to get more awake. By the time we were in Niko's room, I was feeling pretty good, awake and rested and ready for anything.

Or so I thought.

Robin dropped his news like a bombshell.

"There's only one person I can think to ask. Abbagor."

Both Niko and I flinched at the name. Last time we'd nearly _died_ thank you very much. "Fuck, no, that's not funny, Robin," I blurted. My good mood was gone, just like that. Like having a bucket of cold water dashed over me. Fuck that.

Niko stared grimly at Robin.

Robin stared back, green eyes cold and ruthless as Niko's ever were. He didn't _like_ it but it was the answer he'd come to, and he was giving us his all. He was a survivor, alright, but it was likely to get us killed.

Niko sighed tightly. "Well. It is an option."

"It's a shitty option," I opined. "Also probably suicidal."

"When you come up with a better option, we'll take it," Niko returned, tone prickly. Warning. Don't push it, was what the look he gave me said - but almost tiredly.

I didn't feel like pushing it today. Not so soon. So I just grimaced instead and sat on the bed. "Fuck. Robin, for the record, I don't like this plan." I smiled grimly at him.

He managed a quirk of a smile back. "Duly noted. I don't either. Mostly because I can't go down there with a torn muscle in my leg."

Yeah, that would be suicide option number one, with Abbagor. The troll was damn fast and so fucking lethal they should use him for military-grade assaults. He'd almost gotten_ Niko_, for the sake of all that was holy, and Niko was the best of the best. Niko looked like he'd swallowed something sour, and Robin didn't look much better.

"Niko, I want an anti-tank rocket."

Niko stared at me, then put his face in his hands. "Niko," he mimicked my voice damn near perfectly, "I want to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge with us under it." He raised his head and crossed his arms, giving me a half-glare that said _'please I know you are not that stupid.'_

Right, underground. So that was suicide option number two. Good to know. I sighed, got to my feet, and went to my dufflebag. "I still have some triple-aught shot somewhere, right?"

"I think so," Niko returned, and moved to his own pair of bags. He extracted a heavy-bladed short sword. "I'll have to get my broadsword out of the car," he mused. "Cal. Hatchet."

I turned just in time to catch the sheathed weapon spinning at my head. "_Jesus_ Nik, some days I swear you're out to kill me."

"If that was all I wanted, you'd have been dead a long time ago," came the loving reply.

"Well, that's not always the case," Robin mused. "Have I ever told you about the time..."

In went my earbuds. This was gearing-up-for-fighting-for-our-lives time, not graphically-obscene-stories-with-Robin time. Trust the puck to not know the difference.

I damn sure knew the difference, and I picked a shotgun out of my arsenal and loaded it with the biggest buckshot they made before you got into slugs; a Browning A-5 twelve-gauge shotgun with a sawn-off barrel. It was illegal as all hell but it packed a solid punch. Nice five-round magazine, too, with meant I wouldn't be breaking it open to load it mid-fight. I loved a gun with a good magazine capacity.

"Niko, if we're going to keep doing this, I'm going to look into a bullpup shotgun. Or an AR-15." Handguns were good for concealment, easy access, and carrying ease. Walking into nearly-certain-death, I wanted something with proven killing capabilities.

"Next time I drop by Arkady's shop, I'll price AK-47s for you," Niko returned, absently, as he laid out a selection of knives. I could hardly hear him over Alice in Chains, but I'd looked up to read his lips. With a little smile, I went back to my own weaponry. Shotgun, Desert Eagle, hatchet, one of my Glocks, my KA-BAR knife, what else? Hey, I had a machete in here somewhere...


	13. Chapter Thirteen: Crisis

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used here; they are from an old, old folk song from the slave days. This particular arrangement is very lovely and haunting.

Thanks to halesgirl101 for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to Comuterale, SensiblyTainted, and Genesblues for reviewing!

Genesblues, your drabble is at the end of the chapter. Niko took charge and dropped a very plot-revealing secret! Jerk.

* * *

_**Chapter Thirteen:** Crisis_

* * *

_You and me and the devil makes three  
__Don't need no other lovin' baby  
__Go to sleep little baby_  
_Go to sleep little baby_  
_Come lay your bones on the alabaster stones_  
_And be my every lovin' baby_  
-"Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby," from the _O Brother Where Art Thou_ soundtrack

* * *

It was a bright sunny afternoon, spring well in the air and pollen every-frickin'-where. Niko and Robin and I were walking down the mud-lined path to the undersides of the Brooklyn Bridge. There in the depths, deep underground, lived Abbagor, the troll under the bridge. Yes, the troll. How long he'd been there, I didn't know, but it didn't really matter. From the housewarming on, he'd made the place his own. It was his hunting ground and playground all in one - think about that the next time you haul your butt over to Brooklyn. Night was the worst. It was the time Abbagor ranged the length of the bridge, looking for food...looking for pets. Better to be food. If your car stalled there some night late, you'd better keep your ass inside with the doors locked and pray. Pray hard.

I wasn't much of one for the praying, to be honest, but when it came to walking willingly into the lair of something that had almost eaten us not even a year back?

Yeah, I was sending up some hopeful thoughts to God or Buddha or whatever other kindly-inclined deity might be listening. Niko was only slightly more religious than I, but I wasn't sure what he really ascribed to. It just wasn't one of those things that came up in everyday conversation.

Behind a shielding abutment rested the door to Abby's summer, winter, and forever home. Last year when we'd come here seeking information about the Auphe, there had been a heavy layer of mud over the concrete around the entrance. And the _smell_, gah... It was much drier this time around, and the smell was almost nil, which was such a relief. The grate we had moved, however, was back in place and secured with a shiny new padlock. I kicked at it with a booted foot.

"Maybe it's a sign," I commented, hopeful.

"If only." Robin pulled his wallet out and teased out a small piece of metal. In less than three seconds the lock was history. Robin with a lockpick was faster than I was with a key. But then, he'd been picking locks for longer than I'd been born. With enough practise I could probably get about half as good. "There you are. It's the least I can do."

He was staying topside. for us Moral support in five hundred dollar sunglasses. The lawn chair he'd lugged out of his car with him had cost considerably less, and he unfolded it and sat down, turning his face towards the sunshine. I knew he wanted to be down there with us - he was loyal like that. I felt guilty about it: we'd bought that trust with lies and half-truths and outright manipulation. I still couldn't resist needling him, a little. "Comfy?" I teased, smiling.

"Very." He flicked a smile my way. "Tell Abby to send up a margarita, will you? Frozen, with salt."

Damn, now I wanted one. "Sure thing." Niko had moved the grate over, and sat crouched at the edge, staring into the darkness below. I joined him, on the opposite side, boot-toes just hanging over the edge. I caught a whiff of the smell and shuddered. "Oh. Yay. It smells just as good as last time."

"Finger-licking good," Niko deadpanned, and that made me gag on reflex.

"_God_ Nik I _swear_ that was so _not_ funny!" I had to stand up and get a breath of fresh air, shuddering at the very idea. "Wipe that grin off your stupid face! That stuff's _rancid_ yuck!"

Niko just grinned helplessly, crouched with his forearms propped on his knees, scarred wrists dangling loose. "The look on your face..." he managed, breathless, only _just_ not laughing.

"Fuck you up the ass with crowbar!" It was not funny, because I could smell it and taste it, rotten filth and fermenting slime and rancid mud with a soup of liquified bodies. Old bones and cold dead earth and whatever living decay digestion that made up a troll - I _wasn't_ interested in the particulars of that.

"Kinky," Robin mused. "But points for visual imagery."

I zinged him back with a nice phrase in Rom I'd learned from Sophia, detailing what he did in his spare time with goats and his sister. He blinked, then grinned lasciviously, and responded in kind. I only knew about three words, though. Niko and I exchanged puzzled looks. Robin raised an eyebrow. "You don't speak Rom? As often as you insult one another in it, I was certain you did."

"No. Sophia never saw fit to teach us anything other than insults," Niko answered, shaking his head. His braid swung over his shoulder to dangle free over the dark pit. "You know it?"

"There's not a language under the sun I don't know, though I admit I'm a bit rusty on some of the African bush dialects." Robin shrugged carelessly. Was it the truth? I thought so. I whistled, impressed. Niko suddenly pinned Robin with a bright and eager look that had Robin raising his eyebrows slowly. I laughed, because I knew what that look meant.

"Fuck, you're in trouble now," I told Robin, cheerfully.

"Oh?" Robin asked, lifting his sunglasses to better give Niko an expression of _'should that smile worry me_'? For the record, the answer was yes - that was Niko's smile of you-have-what-I-want-and-I-like-that. It was usually followed shortly thereafter by bargaining and wheedling. I couldn't wait to see how this was going to go down.

Niko grinned brightly. "If you're telling the truth, short of any sexual transactions, I'll do damn near anything if you'll teach me."

"Which one?" Robin queried, smiling slowly back.

"As many as you can." Niko looked like a kid at Christmas. I sniggered. Robin laughed at last.

"You're dead serious, aren't you? Well, survive Abbagor first, and then we'll discuss exactly what your payment-" and here Robin waggled his eyebrows suggestively "-will be, since you want it so badly."

Niko actually rolled his eyes at the eyebrows, and laughed. "I said no sex."

"I didn't say anything about sex," Robin returned, slyly. And he hadn't. Niko made a sudden face of dismay, and I laughed at him, because damn if he hadn't thought beyond getting what he wanted. This time he was the one on the bad side of the bargain. I didn't know what Robin had planned - frankly I really didn't want to know, either - but I had the feeling Niko was going to regret making this deal with the devil. So to speak. Robin wasn't a devil, but neither was he sweetness and light, either, and he had a definite thing for Niko.

"What the hell, Nik, did you have a brain-fart or something and forget he was a trickster?" I managed, chuckling.

"Fuck off, bitch," he retorted, which was as good as a yes and that just made me lose it. I doubled over laughing, despite the way it made my bruises ache. Niko scowled at me and Robin laughed with me and I decided the world was beautiful. Just goddamn beautiful.

"Have a nice nap, Robin. We'll be up later." I waved at him.

"Scream if you need help."

I snorted. "Screaming we can do." Niko rolled his eyes again - mark the calendar, _two_ eyerolls from someone far too dignified to be so childish - and slipped silently over the edge of the drop. I followed, but not before smearing a daub of minty toothpaste under my nose. It had been Niko's idea with the bodachs, but there I had been able to get upwind of it. In Abbagor's lair, there was no upwind. I landed in the cool darkness beside Niko, and did not immediately have to double over gagging. I could still smell some of it past the overwhelming punch of _mint_ but not a whole lot.

Niko touched my shoulder in passing. "Good kid. Brushing your teeth before facing uncertain death." I could hear the smile in his voice; he knew why I suddenly smelled minty-fresh.

"Damn straight, I'm also wearing clean underwear. You taught me well." Did people really say that to their kids anymore? Niko had picked it up from an ancient prune of a lady in the mountains of Kentucky, and simply repeated it back to me for the humor value. _"Wear clean underwear in case you have to go to the hospital."_ There was no way either of us was ever going to the hospital; we couldn't afford it, in the money sense and in the sense that I was not human. That would probably screw with everyone's heads just a little too much.

"Kids these days grow up so fast. Brings a tear to my eye." Niko drew his heavy broadsword and started down the muddy hall. He had no flashlight, and neither did I. We had good night vision, and here and there Abbagor's bioluminescing moss had crept out into the corridor. I swung my sawn-off shotgun off my shoulder and thumbed off the safety. I wrapped the leather sling around my forearm for steady shooting and following along behind Nik, trying to imitate the way he moved silently through the watery muck. Happily it was not higher than the tops of my boots, which were waterproof. My toes were dry and safe.

We headed down into the lair, where the service tunnels turned into carved-out tunnels deep into the earth. God help the potbellied service worker that poked his nose into these tunnels; a union card wouldn't carry much weight with Abbagor. God help _us_, because we were walking willingly into this lair, and I could read the tension in Niko's shoulders. He'd had nightmares after this, last year. Hell, I'd had nightmares, and in our life only the worst of stuff could do that.

The cavern was also brightly lit by the moss. Abbagor was feeling very welcoming then. Niko and I hesitated at the entrance, looking around in the dim shadows. Abbagor had been on the ceiling the first time, and no way in hell were we going to walk in under that.

A burbling echo ran around the room. "Welcome..."

With the accoustics it was impossible to tell where Abbagor was. Niko shook his head, lips a thin line, and walked into the cavern. I followed him closely, finger on the trigger, stock on my shoulder.

"We've come to talk, Abbagor," Niko called, voice steady and calm. "There's something we need to know."

"Talk. My fair-haired thrall and an Aupheling. Let us talk." Hell, last time Abbagor had hardly noticed me. This was not a comforting development. I knew what 'thrall' meant, too, and I didn't like it; slave was not something I wanted Niko to be called. From the way anger flashed over Niko's face, neither did he. Then Abbagor surfaced.

He hadn't been on the ceiling; this time he'd been in the cesspool of mud at our feet. That was new; there had to be a pit in there dug to accommodate his bulk. The mud smelled like a torpid soup of liquid decay and rotting bodies. It was a sick smell, cutting in thin over the mint. I swallowed hard, my mouth watering, my stomach doing a slow roll. Abbagor bobbed complacently in the muck with all the charm of a rotting corpse. His body was made of grey writhing tentacles wrapped over and around; his face was eyeless, his head crowned with the upswept ears of a vampire bat. His lipless mouth grinned, and his fangs were black, dripping yellow with poison. The side and back of his head bulged, showing where I'd shot his brains out. But apparently it hadn't killed him. I wondered what _would_.

"We're looking for something. You are old and know a great deal. You might know of what we seek," Niko said, evenly, and I recognized a certain formal we-are-talking-to-dragons element in his voice straight from his narrations of high-fantasy fairytales when we'd been small.

Here there be trolls. Watch your ass.

Abbagor made a humming noise, bass enough it rattled in the bottom of my lungs. "True. All passes beneath my benevolent eye. Tell me of this thing which you seek." He moved closer in his self-proclaimed benevolence, his voice mellow and clear and sweet. I tracked him with my gun, and Niko hefted the angle of his sword.

Niko described the crown, briefly. Abbagor listened, and hummed again. Niko shifted his sword again, a nervous twitch. Hell. He was bad off.

"Ah, the Calabassa. Barely ten thousand years old. Modern trash from a refuse race, the Bassa. Your kind ate them, little Aupheling, every last one, not long after the crowns were created. Male, female, child and egg." Abbagor smiled at me. I think it was a smile, at least. "Quite tender meat, once the poison sacs were removed. Sweet and mild."

"Where do we find the crown, if the Bassa are gone?" Niko asked, quickly. No need to let Abbagor get too far down memory lane, after all. While educational it was not what we'd come for.

Abbagor chuckled, a low rusty sound that made all my hair stand on end in an atavistic shiver. "Both hands out begging. You want and want, greedy little human, but what do you give?"

Of course. Here there be dragons, ect., ect. Anything Abby here wanted from us, though, was not going to be good. I tensed.

"Very well," Niko said, reluctantly, mouth twisted like the words tasted bad. I bet they did - they were sour to hear. "What do you want?"

"I want...I want..." he mused, softly. "I want to touch. I want to taste. I want to know what I knew before. I want to know the part of me that is gone."

Niko flinched, and anger ran hard and hot into his face at the same time most of the colour ran out of it, leaving him pale under the olive of his skin. I stepped forward, my own anger hot and hard over the fine thin thrill of fear. "No. Hell no. Keep your fuckin' tentacles to yourself, pervert." Niko hissed at me, but I put an arm in front of him and aimed right between Abbagor's non-existent eyes. Bantering words and information was one thing. Bringing nightmares back to life was another entirely.

Abbagor slouched back. "You've taught it to speak, I see. They're dangerous pets to keep, you know." He turned his head away, disinterested. "That is my price. A touch for what only I know. Pay or no, I care not."

I gritted my teeth. We needed to know, but I wasn't going to put Niko through hell just to get an answer we could probably get eventually elsewhere. I also didn't like being called a pet. "I think for myself just fine," I answered, and my voice kept wanting to slip down into a growl instead of making words. I had to concentrate to stay talking. "I just didn't have a reason to speak to you, shitstain."

Niko put his hand on my shoulder. "Cal. Stand down."

I really didn't want to. I was pissed off for Niko's sake. I wanted to fight, and something in me said I could take Abby here. The Auphe hunting drive, woken up and ready to run. I bared my teeth, choked down the growl in my throat, and backed up a single step, dropping my arm. Niko was the one in charge here.

"One touch. Ten seconds," Niko dictated, voice cold as the steel blade in his hands. I dared a glance at him; his face was blank. "No more. Then you answer our question."

"So bold. So audacious...for a human." Abbagor grinned widely, entertained but good now.

"Bold, audacious, and highly annoyed," Niko returned bitingly, though his eyes were dark in his pale face. "Get on with it, troll."

"Such an impatient race. Comes from being barely evolved, I suppose," Abbagor mused. He sloshed foward a little more, right up to the edge of the pit. I tracked him with my gun, and Niko settled his weight in a subtle shift. Abbagor extended a giant hand, slowly, patiently. A cat trying not to frighten away the mice. Nothing wrong with that, right? Right, except for the fact that in his giant palm was a pair of human lips, pink and moist. A woman's lips, one of his slaves. I couldn't stop a shudder.

Neither could Niko. His sword whipped out and balanced for a chopping stroke. "No. Put it away or I take it off." There was a harsh note in his voice, and he was still pale.

Me, I was all for the chop. Yeah, a big fan of the chop. A fight I could handle; this was altogether too cruel and too slow for my tastes. But Abbagor gave in, the son of a bitch.

"Very well. I will bow to your human prejudices," Abbagor rumbled, and the lips were covered up. Right, prejudices, said the monster in the graveyard pit giving my brother a particularly nasty turn on the merry-go-round of psychological torture. A rather plump tentacle nudged at the hovering point of Niko's sword, then rose slowly and reached out to rest on the back of his hand. "Ah...I remember. A piquant flavor, so unique. You taste of metal and blood, of green grass and blue sky. And, after all this long, long time, you still taste of...me." The tentacle made a little petting motion, stroking across the back of Niko's scarred hand, a gentle caress.

I looked at Niko's face. It was blank as a mask, eyes gone opaque as a wall. He was gone, checked out.

Fuck.

_Fuck_.

I counted down the time in my head, down to the last ticking second. Then I reached out and pulled Niko's hand away. He shifted, automatically readjusted his stance. He could - and would - fight like this, but he wasn't going to talk any more.

"You've had your jollies," I said, and my voice was ragged with the growl pulling at my vocal cords. "Now answer the damn question."

For a moment there was silence. I itched to fight, but Abbagor was going to speak and there was nothing more he liked than showing off. Funny, for a killing machine to be so full of conceit and human pride. Abbagor sighed. The gust of his breath was fetid and rotten. He smelled _sick_, unhealthy, and I wanted to go for his throat. You killed the weak, and right now he was weak. I gritted my teeth and hung back for Niko. "Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks." Shakespeare, figured Abbagor would be literate in the classics. A Comedy of Errors was definitely _not_ what I'd call this, though. A _Saw_ remake, in a few minutes maybe. "Seek out your kind. They have the Calabassa. They're quite enamoured of baubles."

My breath hissed through my teeth. "_My_ kind?"

"Oh no, Aupheling. _His_." Abbagor pointed to Niko. "The Rom. They were allies with the Bassa, long years ago. They will know what has become of the crowns."

Great. Just great. There was a reason Niko and I weren't on speaking terms with either of our relatives. Well, hadn't been. I wasn't sure I was not-speaking to the Auphe any more. But the Rom, yeah. No. Still not-speaking.

"Long years ago...when the Auphe ruled supreme. Such delightful enemies of mine. Are you worthy of such hate, little Aupheling?" Abbagor asked, and his voice grew louder with every word. Whoops. We had overstayed our welcome. Time to get while the getting was good. I pulled the trigger, whirled, and bolted. I didn't run near fast enough. A tentacle snaked around my ankle and with a snatch that tried to displace every frickin' bone in my body at once, I was yanked backwards. I hit the wall, ricocheted off, and landed in Abbagor's mud-pit-sludge.

Drowning sucked. Drowning in mud sucked worse. Drowning in mud that smelled and tasted like a thousand rotting corpses? You take a fucking guess on the amount of suckage that equalled.

Dazed from the hit, I couldn't tell which was was up, and only _just_ had the presence of mind to keep my mouth shut, my hand still clenched around the stock of my gun. I kicked, flailed, and fought against the thin watery mud that I couldn't even swim in, but I was giving it a damn good shot. About the time my hand broke air, another wrapped around it and I was hauled by main force over the edge and dropped. Spluttering, I shot to my feet, working on instinct alone; my sense of smell had kicked the bucket and the rest of my central nervous system wanted to - I vomited, staggering, and brought my gun to my shoulder. My vision was fading in and out, my ears ringing, but I could see Niko severing tentacles and Abbagor lurching closer. I raised my muddied shotgun and pulled the trigger, half choking on mud and vomit.

Hot damn it still worked, but I couldn't hear fuck anymore. I saw the shot tear away at Abbagor's face and throat, peeling back flesh to the bone. A tentacle snaked out, and caught Niko around the throat. He was snatched from his feet and shaken so violently I thought his neck was going to snap - he dropped his sword, but then his hands were fumbling after after a short sword, even as his face turned white, then purple.

I tried to shoot Abbagor again. My gun jammed. I flung it over my shoulder by the strap, darted in close, and reached for the hatchet Niko had lent me as I ran. Okay it was a staggering half-drunk run, but I had to get Nik down. Abbagor had stepped out of his pit, and his legs were almost down to the bare bones, thick grey-green tendons and rags of rotting putrid flesh. Sick indeed and rotting away in his own filth. Each bone was thick around as my waist, but I had an easier target. A few quick chops and tendons split and tore, snapping free.

Abbagor roared, tentacles flailing, and threw Niko like a ragdoll. He hit one of the earthen walls so hard it collapsed. Abbagor swayed ponderously, like a mountain on its way down. Not wanting to end up with a troll on my puny head (because I certainly couldn't live without my brains inside my skull, unlike Abby there) I turned and bolted. Tentacles whipped past me and I slashed at them as I ran. Abbagor hit like a bomb going off, shaking the floor...and the entire cavern. Rocks and earth were falling around me, and fear gave my legs new strength as I realized suddenly the tunnel was caving in. Dammit.

I could see Niko's blonde head. He was trying to come back towards me, staggering and running.

We weren't far apart when I saw it happen.

The chunk of concrete didn't look so big, maybe the size of a basketball, and it hit Niko on the head.

From the way he went down, it must have knocked him cold on impact.

I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, and all my world narrowed to the blonde head being slowly buried under loose earth and mud.

Blood in his hair, over his face, and I pulled him into my arms. He was limp, heavy, a dead weight.

_Don't think dead don't think that don't think it!_

The world was falling in around us. I couldn't get him out I didn't want him to be dead we needed to get out get out!

Hunt, run, _go_.

I felt the gate snap open, desperation and the surge of energy like a clean cut opening up my chest and reality both. I yanked Niko up and staggered through.

Mud, earth, concrete and clean air. I hit the ground hard on my butt, Niko across my lap, blood and mud and vomit in my nose and mouth, and I stared up at Robin's shadow across the sky.

I couldn't even speak before he was down beside us, rolling Niko over, looking for the injury. It'd hit in the same place as the crossbow bolt, stitches torn away and the skin split open, bleeding copiously. His face was white and his lips were grey, but when I gasped out his name and Robin shook him, he groaned. He was breathing he was _breathing alive_ and I started crying in hiccuping sobs. My head was blazing with pain and my nose was bleeding but I couldn't smell anything anymore, at least.

Robin was checking Niko's pulse, peeling back eyelids to check pupil response. Niko groaned again, one hand lifting, pushing at Robin's ankle.

I coughed, choked, and had to lean over to puke up what was left in my stomach. When I turned back, Niko was coughing, and Robin and I both rolled him over before he could choke. He threw up all over Robin's shoes. For once, Robin didn't complain.

"What happened?" he demanded, voice sharp like a blade. "Niko, can you hear me?"

"Abbagor. He...he fell and the place started caving in..." Was the ground still shaking, a distant rumble? I stopped thinking about it when Niko opened his eyes, pupils blown, squinting and his face slack with confusion. "Nik!"

He closed his eyes again, opened them, and reached for me. "Wha?" he slurred, thickly.

"You're hurt. We're safe," I managed, sniffling. My nose was running with snot and a little fine trickle of blood and I couldn't stop crying. "S'okay Nik, stay awake."

"Yeah. 'M 'wake," he added, and went boneless again.

Robin was cussing. "Here. My car. Let's go. He needs medical attention. What hit him on the head?" He bent and gathered Niko up, with astonishing gentleness considering the urgency in his voice. I scrambled up. Shit my legs didn't want to work, and wiping at my face accomplished exactly jack shit because my hands were covered in mud and blood.

"Big rock. Fell." Robin wasn't exactly running, but he was making really good time. I had to scramble to keep up, with my wobbly legs and pounding head. We crested the top of the path and Robin looked between our vehicles. He moved towards our El Camino and I broke into a run to get the door open for him.

"Weapons, Cal, get all his weapons off of him," Robin ordered, sharply.

I was shaking, numb because that was better than shitface terrified, and when Robin laid Niko out on the bench seat I scrambled to crouch in the floorboards, both to support Nik and to start peeling him out of his coat, fingers fumbling at the straps for his sword harness. Robin slid into the driver's seat and gunned the motor. I braced Niko and Robin squealed the tires peeling out of there. Niko groaned, and came half awake, and his fingers tangled with mine as I worked. Sword harness, out of the coat, wrist sheaths, the ones at his belt, the ones in his boots, the one he always hid in his hair... My hand came away with a glistening coat of blood and I gagged.

"Yours too," Robin ordered, tersely.

Niko was bleeding and hurt and fading in and out of consciousness. I couldn't stop crying, sharp gasping sobs, and I peeled out of my own jacket, my guns, the knives at my belt and in my boots. Mud and blood was smeared everywhere and Niko swore faintly under his breath in Rom and his eyes wouldn't focus on mine.

"Nik, Nik, Nik, oh God, Nik please Nik Nik..."

Robin was unbuckling his seatbelt. I realized we were stopped and he was shouting something, and he opened the door and I had to steady Niko before he fell out, gone unconscious again.

Robin, a security guard, and glass door and a huge building...he'd brought us to a _hospital_ and suddenly I wanted to scream at him didn't he _know_ we _couldn't_ go there people died there we couldn't go in there!

They had a stretcher and they were loading Niko onto it and I shoved someone in scrubs aside to grab Niko's hand, desperate to stay close, they weren't going to take him _away from me_ never no! They were calling sharp orders back and forth and one of them was checking Niko's pulse, his eyes, same as Robin had. Niko was surfacing again, hazy but almost coherent, answering questions fuzzily.

Then they were rolling him inside and someone tried to make me let go but I wasn't letting go, no way, no how, they weren't going to take him from me!

* * *

**A/N: **For making the correct guess that Niko had, in fact, killed Lilith for kissing Cal while drunk, and lied about being triggered into a disassociative episode, Genesblues gets a drabble! She asked for one in Niko's POV. I'm note sure why ya'll keep wanting that...his head is creepy as all get-out...

**_Warnings:_** _discussions of sexuality, psuedo-incest, outright manipulation, and Niko's seriously effed up headspace._

.

When I woke up, it was just before dawn, it was sleeting, and Cal was humping my leg in his sleep.

Wat a lovely, lovely day this was going to be.

It took me several minutes to extract myself from Cal's grip - he was clingy and had tangled himself around me pretty damn well. Not to mention the dream he was having...well, at least it was proof he was a healthy kid. The hazards of sleeping with eachother had only gotten worse after puberty, but it actually didn't bother me as much as it probably should have. After all, it wasn't as if Cal acted untoward while he was awake.

Our relationship was very strictly non-sexual, though we were very intimate. The closeness was comforting to us both. When all you have is eachother, the other's presence and closeness becomes very precious.

Another reason I didn't mind as much as I should have was because I was just glad Cal was normal. Because I really wasn't, on that score. Sure, I was fairly heterosexual...when I was even remotely interested. Which was very rare, borderlining on 'never.'

Being asexual is complicated in a highly sexually-charged world.

Some people did come by that orientation naturally. I was not one of those, which further complicated things.

I'd been careful not to let Cal know. He didn't need to realize the birds and the bees lecture I'd given him had been salvaged from the internet and a few romance novels, not experience. He and everyone else thought I was quite the player, with my string of girls, though he did know I liked to keep them as long as I could on nothing but pretty promises. The girls were not a sexual outlet for me and never had been, because I didn't need it. What I did need, they provided; I gave them pretty words, whispered everything they wanted to hear, and in return they'd buy things if I mentioned needing money.

Sophia'd had her marks, whored herself her way.

I whored myself out my way, and I'd like to think it was better on the sliding scale of morality.

After all, the easiest marks were the pretty rich girls with the daddy issues, searching for their own validation with a man in the absence of a father, or in the shadow of an abusive one. I gave them what they wanted to hear, for a little while made them the fairytale princess they desired to be, and used their black credit cards to buy things like clothes, car parts, Cal's mp3 player and giftcards for that, and weapons off the black market. I gave the girls a grand good time, and in return I got what I needed to help keep Cal happy and safe.

Happy, safe, healthy, and in the dark - he knew the girls would buy me things, but he didn't know that was the only reason I even bothered.

I had a lot of secrets to keep from Cal. That was perhaps the least of them.


	14. Chapter Fourteen: Ache

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used here!

Medical notes: I work in an ER, so even though I've tried to narrow out the medical jargon, there's still some in there. More notes at the end of the chapter!

Thanks to SensiblyTainted for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to Obi the Kid, Comuterale, and halesgirl101 for reviewing! A big thanks and a welcome back to Kin-outcast1 for reviewing!

Also, Niko in a hospital gown = free butt-shots for everyone. Don't say I never gave you nuthin'. (Personally agrees with Robin that Niko's backside is _fine._)

* * *

_**Chapter Fourteen:** Ache_

* * *

_If you never had it then  
__You don't know how bad it is  
__There is nothing like it, well  
__Needless talk, then, I can tell  
_-"Domino," The Goo Goo Dolls

* * *

I half-laid on the cot, shedding flakes of mud all over the pristine starched sheet, and held Niko's hand so he wouldn't pick out his IV. Robin sat, mud- and blood-streaked, in a chair pulled up beside the bed. We'd been here ten minutes, said the clock on the wall, but I wasn't sure it was ten minutes. Could an eternity be packed into ten minutes? They'd scanned Niko's head, they'd started an IV, they'd X-rayed him, they'd cut him out of his clothes, drawn blood and hung fluid and hooked him up to monitors that showed erratic squiggly lines that I couldn't read. Then they'd left us alone, in a glass-fronted room right in front of nurse's station. Niko's blood-soaked, cut-up shirt was still slopped on the floor, and so were his pants; he was wearing a hospital gown and nothing else. There was the IV trash littering the little metal table-tray pulled up by the bed, and a plastic urinal jug, and a piece of paper with notes taken in some really gnarly handwriting.

My sense of smell was still dead as a doornail, but while it was a mercy it was also starting to freak me the fuck out. Niko laid very still, though his eyes were open and tracking, the head of the stretcher propped up a little. He kept watching me mostly, breath fogging faintly in the oxygen mask he wore.

"I can't smell him, Robin." My voice was thin and snot-chugged and hurt my own head. I had an awful headache, dull and skull-encompassing. "I can't smell anything."

"You said that," Robin soothed, but he was worried and there was a furrow between his eyebrows. "Niko mentioned you have a good nose."

"If I could smell I wouldn't be in here." I rubbed at a drip of dried blood between Niko's knuckles. It crackled up off the skin in chips and crumbs. "I can't breathe in hospitals. Everything's dead and rotting and sick. You know cancer smells like frying blood?"

Robin was giving me a funny look. "You can _smell_ that?"

"Yeah." Niko curled his fingers around mine. I stopped picking at the dried blood. "I can't smell Nik. I can't smell you. Are you really you, Robin?" I put my head down on Niko's upper arm. It was cold in here. I had my knees folded up over Niko's thigh.

"I'm really me, kiddo." Robin's voice was kind. "I'll be right back, okay?"

Niko breathed slowly, and I breathed with him. I felt numb all over, too cold and too tired. Too much too soon. I pressed my back against the stretcher railing and my bruises ached hotly. I was alive, Niko was alive, Niko was warm and so were the bruises. His fingers tugged at mine - I held on. He kept wanting to worry out the IVs. He was awake, but slow and sluggish and definitely not all there. He'd known who he was, though, and the year and where he was. So they said he was doing really well. But I knew he wasn't okay, not really, the way he was acting.

Robin came back in, trailing a round lady in scrubs. She snapped on some blue nitrile gloves and started cleaning the room up, moving in a brisk busy way. She poked a button on the monitor machine and the blood-pressure cuff around Niko's arm started puffing up. I watched her, and Niko watched her, and she looked grim and tired and disinterested in her job. Robin tapped me on the arm, and held out two things. One was a surgical mask, and the other was a little clear bottle. I stared at it blankly, at the oil inside it.

"Peppermint oil," he explained, and his hand rested over my shoulder. "For when your sense of smell decides to kick back in."

Wow. I knew I should smile but I felt too weirdly blank. "Thanks, Robin."

He nodded, and sat in his chair again. That was exactly when another lady poked her head in. "Mister Goodfellow, I need you to verify your payment information, please." Robin stood up with a sigh, and the tired lady left, and then it was just me and Niko.

"We need to leave," I whispered, because Niko and I couldn't afford to pay Robin back for this.

Niko went tense all over. Worried, I lifted my head, but he wasn't looking at me. He wasn't looking at anything at all. I could only see the whites of his eyes under the edge of his lashes, neck arched stiff, and the monitor squealed and his body convulsed and that was wrong wrong _wrong_ no no no that wasn't a good thing Nik!

The room filled up with people in a heartbeat. Someone pulled me off the bed and they dropped the head and the railings flat, rolled Niko to his side as he jerked and twitched like a hooked fish in sharp spasms. The doctor, the nurses, they hurried back and forth, sharp orders and words barked in harsh tones: "_Seizing...increased ICP...gimme diazepam STAT...where's the crash cart? Get respiratory in here." _Somebody rolled a big cart in, rattling loud and metallic. Niko dropped limp and the monitor was still squalling its electronic warning and one of the wriggling lines was flat and still.

Someone was screaming, raw and shrill on a high single hysterical note.

It wasn't until Robin's hand clapped roughly over my mouth that I realized _I_ was the one screaming.

He was backed into a corner with an arm like a bar of steel around my chest pinning my arms to my sides and a rough-calloused hand over my mouth and I couldn't stop screaming. They'd rolled Niko on his back again, were bending over and hiding him from view; one of his arms draped out over the edge of the bed forgotten, hand dangling from a limp wrist, and Robin's hand was hot on my mouth and his blood was hot on my lips and I _couldn't stop_.

A nurse moved in front of us, blocking my view. "Can you take him out?"

Over my mental chant of _no no no no_ Robin was shaking his head. "I think he's having a panic attack. He's got some serious anxiety issues. I...don't have his medication with me."

"I think you should take him out of the room."

Niko was struggling now, and I couldn't see well enough, but Robin said something else and the nurse backed away. Oh _God_ they were trying to put a tube down his throat. He was fighting them and I needed to get to him he needed me and a nurse injected something milk-coloured through the IV and he abruptly stopped fighting and went limp.

The nurse was back, handing Robin something. His hand was bloody and bitten when he pressed it against my lips, something small and bitter on my tongue. "Swallow that, Caliban. Swallow it."

I did.

The world hazed away white and too bright and empty of everything.

I woke up to Niko stroking my hair.

I _knew_ his hand anywhere. I'd know it in my sleep. Hell, even if I were goddamn _dead_ I'd probably still know it was Niko. I couldn't smell him, but the instant alarm at that was weirdly muted. I could smell peppermint, strong enough my eyes watered, and I tried not to breathe too deeply. Something was on my face. I pawed at it with clumsy fingers: a soft synthetic cloth mask. I opened my eyes to an expanse of bland beige blanket when Niko made a rough scolding noise deep in the back of his throat. I dropped my hand obediently and laid very still, just to make sure. Niko's hand resumed petting my hair, which was filthy with mud and blood and God only knew what else. It crackled under his touch.

Blankets, white pillows. The dry elastic behind my ears itched but when I reached up to rub at it Niko scolded me again. I stopped. I felt...I didn't know how I felt. Flat. Like I was under a plate of glass. I was looking around the room but not really _seeing_ it, head resting on Niko's chest, body limp across the covers. I was bundled under one of the same beige blankets, and the room was very dim. There was a clock ticking somewhere. Hissing of pressurized gas. Niko was breathing deeply and evenly, and he wasn't relaxed entirely. He was wary-tense, a shade of normal, and his hand on my hair was comforting. I felt weirdly displaced despite that - I was with Niko, but I didn't know where the hell we were or how we'd gotten here. And somehow I didn't much care. It was bad, I should know, I needed to know, but my head was too heavy to lift and Niko was warm and I felt flat.

"What did they give you?"

Niko's voice was a whisper, hoarse and harsh and it hurt my ears to hear it that way.

For a moment I didn't even think I could talk, but I couldn't panic over it. Then my dry lips and tongue unsealed, and my answer was weirdly slow and awfully slurred. "Dunno...pill." I'd been panicking. I hadn't been able to get out of it. Probably a sedative. My thoughts felt clear enough, but picking up what my body was up to, or my emotions... that was not coming in real well at all.

"Don't take it again," Niko warned. "You've been...you scared me."

My heart clenched and I turned my face into his chest. He pulled at my hair, but it didn't hurt. He started petting again. I could almost smell him around the peppermint. Almost. I laid there and he ran his hand over my hair and I drifted. It was a weird, dreamy feeling, like waking up in slow motion. Or like the world was fitting back into place like a broken bone being set. Niko's hand stilled only when he fell asleep.

I was dozing when Robin opened the door and came in. I lifted my head and watched him wordlessly. He smiled at me and crossed to the bedside in the dim. "Hey," he whispered.

"Hi," I croaked. Niko didn't stir. I shifted and found my arms. One was folded up under me against Niko's ribs, the other draped across his chest. "Robin, they drugged me."

Robin winced. "We did. You wouldn't stop screaming. Mighty Zeus, that was eerie a sound as I ever heard. And I have heard a lot of screaming in my day." His hand on the railing shifted, then stopped and settled. I reached out and brushed my fingertips over his hand. Long fingers folded over mine and his smile was a little easier. "You'll both be fine. Niko's got a small skull fracture, but he's not hurt anywhere else. You, well, you look like you'll recover."

"I look like shit," I muttered. I knew it. My hair was dirty and stiff and my face felt smeared and crusted. I sat up stiffly, feeling slow and clumsy. Niko wasn't awake and that made this all seem weirder; he slept light and he should have roused by now. Robin pulled a little on the hand he held to help me up. "Skull fracture?"

"It was a heavy rock. He's lucky he had you to get him out." Robin squeezed my hand. "He'll be fine. They didn't even take him into surgery."

"Oh." I sagged, and after a moment just put my forehead down on Niko's hip, curling over his lap. My ponytail was stiff when it brushed the side of my face. Yuck. I sat there for several moments, collecting my thoughts again. Niko was okay. That was all that mattered. "Don't drug me again," I told Robin. "I feel...weird."

"I won't,"said Robin, fondly, and then his fingertips brushed over the nape of my neck.

I tensed and waited for a pinch, before I realized Robin's slender cool blunt fingers were tracing the shadows of bruises over my skin. Suddenly it really sank in that Robin could see the bruises. The bruises, the ones that Niko gave me. I struggled back up, bumping against his hand. Robin's green eyes were steady as he met my gaze, and I wasn't with it enough to decipher exactly what emotion shaded the emerald depths.

"Caliban," he said, very softly and gently, "Who's been pinching you so hard?"

No way to lie. He knew what they were. I stared at him, head gone stupid from whatever fucking drug, and couldn't think of a lie fast enough. Robin waited, and I couldn't think of a damn thing to say for too long. "I..." My thoughts were too slow. "Nik. He...reminds me to focus. Pay attention." Little reminders in blue and purple and pain.

"I wasn't aware you had problems with focusing," Robin said, and he was quiet.

"I...sometimes." Let him buy it. Oh God let him buy it. I couldn't keep looking at him.

For a moment there was silence. "Then what is this?" he asked, and reached over my shoulder. A single finger pressed lightly and traced the stripe of a greening bruise from where it just barely peeked over my collar at the edge of my neck down my back to the edge of my shoulderblade, Robin's wrist pressing firm against my upper arm. He still held my hand, and his green eyes were serious and very, very old. I closed my eyes, shivering from the echoes of pressure that were not quite pain.

I wanted it to hurt. Bruises should hurt.

Only Niko was ever so careful when he touched me, and it felt _wrong_ somehow for Robin's hand to rest against my back.

"Don't...don't ask me that," I whispered, voice dry and hoarse and thick. "Robin. Please." He took a breath. "Please."

There was a moment of stillness. Robin's hand moved from my back. A curled forefinger nudged my jaw; a calloused thumb wiped the single hot tear off my cheek before it could get the mask I wore wet. Shame, anger, sickness, despair, fear. I didn't want Robin to know. I didn't want to see the way he looked at me change. I _liked_ him, dammit, I didn't want to have to push him away and leave him behind, like we'd done to so many others. I didn't want him to _pity_ me.

Robin's hands were cool, like summer shade. He took his hand away from my cheek, but the fingers twined with mine stayed. "May I ask again later?"queried he, and the patience in his voice was ancient. When I didn't answer, he added, "Caliban. I can't _not_ ask. Not if you're hurt."

"It hurts more when you ask. Leave it alone." I opened my eyes but I couldn't look at him. I stared down at our hands.

"Cal." That startled me into looking up - Robin didn't know what my full name meant to me (call a monster by its real name) and he didn't often call me Cal. That was usually only Niko's territory. Robin's eyes were deep and his voice was earnest, serious. It was as far from the laughing trickster as I'd ever known him to be, and yet it was still very much Robin in a raw way I didn't have words for.

He was older than I could imagine. He'd seen so much.

A small voice in my head said Robin had seen right through my lies, and he only wanted to hear the truth from me, in my own words, to have it out and make it honest between us.

Honesty was like a blade. Niko and I cut eachother to pieces with it every day.

I glanced automatically at Niko, hoping. I didn't want to answer Robin. Niko told better lies, would know how to handle this. But Niko was asleep, face slack and empty, and I didn't want to answer and I didn't want Robin to treat me like I was damaged, made of glass, a _victim_, because of all the things I was (monster brother healing loved abused) I _was not a victim_. I wasn't helpless and I wasn't weak and I wasn't mindless. I was a monster, and we didn't get happy lives. I tried to pull my hand out of Robin's. His fingers tightened, but when I looked up he wasn't looking at me.

That made it suddenly easier to think, somehow. "Not...not now, Robin."

Robin's curly head nodded, bowed and eyes closed. "Thank you." His voice was quiet, gentle.

For the life of me I had no idea why it made me start crying.

That got Niko up at last, though. When I started sniffling and my breathing went harsh, Niko stirred hazily and opened his eyes. He reached up to me and I laid down again, hiding my face in his chest. He put his arms around me and let me hide, even if Robin was still holding my hand. Niko ran his fingers over my hair, and took a deeper breath. He hummed a thin frayed note before his voice quit, but I knew what he was trying to do. I took a rattling breath and started humming the old lullabye myself.

It...wasn't the same, but it still helped. It still helped. I'd have to remember that, if it could work like that. I'd never thought about it before. I laid there dry-eyed and breathed.

"Did you tell Robin what Abbagor said, little brother?" Niko croaked, voice dry and hoarse.

"No." I shifted, and Niko let me sit up. I still couldn't quite look Robin in the eye. "Abbagor said the Rom have the second crown. He didn't say what clan."

Robin grinned, but the expression was wan, lacking his usual cheer and enthusiasm. "I may not know everything, but I _do_ know everyone. Given a little time, I'll find out which tribe it is and where they are."

"I hope to God it's not the Vayash," Niko sighed.

I winced, despite myself. I did remember _that_ visit. "Same."

Robin raised an eyebrow. "That was your mother's clan?"

"Yes. Damn them to the deepest pits of Hell, yes." Niko coughed, and the noise he made after felt like it cut me in two. I looked at him with my heart in my throat - his face had gone white as the sheets, as the gauze around his forehead, and there was a crease between his brows. But he opened his eyes and put a hand on my arm and tapped a finger. After a few very controlled breaths, he spoke again. "I'm fine, Cal. Head hurts."

Robin gave my hand a squeeze, then let go. He busied himself with something on the bedside table. With a flourish, he leaned over the bed-railing with a styrofoam cup of water with a straw. Only Robin, and Niko and I both smiled a little. Niko reached up and pulled off the oxygen mask, beads of moisture from the humidified air glittering-bright on his lips. He reached for the cup, but Robin wouldn't give it up entirely, so with a dirty look Niko simply wrapped his fingers over Robin's to pull the straw exactly where he wanted it. He drank thirstily, and it occurred to me that there was an IV bag half-full hanging over the bed...but no IV in Niko's arms. He pushed the cup away, and saw me looking. He offered no explanation, only nudged Robin's wrist towards me. Robin smirked when I tried to take the cup from him, hanging onto it as he had with Niko.

"Fuck no, I will kick your ass," I managed. "I'm not playing your games."

"Such threats! Surely you can think of a better use for my ass," Robin retorted, waggling his eyebrows cheesily.

I drank the water by dint of slipping the straw under the surgical mask and Niko calmly flipped Robin the bird. "I can. Hit on my little brother again and I'll turn your ass into a _rug_."

"Say it again when your skull _isn't_ cracked and I'll believe it," Robin chuckled, but he wasn't all with the levity. "I'll start making calls."

"Good." Niko took a breath, braced himself tense, and sat up from the bed. He wobbled a little, eyes shut, and his face had practically no colour to it at all. He opened his eyes and though there was pain bracketing the thin line of his lips his grey eyes were clear and determined. "Get the nurse before you do. I'm leaving."

It took two hours. The nurses and the doctors and the security guards all tried to argue Niko had just suffered a traumatic brain injury and was not fit to go anywhere. I was pretty much on their side, as was Robin, because even if Niko had gotten to his feet under his own power, he was pale as a ghost and shaky with it. But he was in his right mind, and an adult, and reasoned them down ruthlessly. He and Robin signed some papers saying the hospital was not responsible for anything that happened after Niko left, and then we were out, AMA: against medical advice. Still wearing nothing but a hospital gown, Niko leaned heavily on my shoulder as he limped barefoot down the hall. Robin had him by the other arm and was trying to tell Niko he was being an idiot. I already knew Niko wasn't listening.

I was as stiff as Niko - apparently cave-ins of earth and concrete and fighting with trolls and being thrown into walls made you stiff as hell. I had bruised and pulled muscles all over.

Niko threw up in the ornamental flower-pot while Robin went to get his car. I helped make sure the flimsy hospital gown stayed put and nobody got flashed, at the same time giving Niko an arm to lean over so he wouldn't end up face first in the freshly decorated pansies. His balance was shot, and it was the first time in years I'd seen him stand flat-footed for more than a minute. Niko was _always_ balanced and ready for a fight. Except now he was not, and he looked like death warmed over.

"You look like shit."

"You look worse," he returned, breathily.

Fortunately, Robin pulled up before I had to witness the indignity of my older brother quietly passing out on a busy sidewalk in nothing but a hospital gown. Niko sat in the front seat and I crawled into the back of the cherry-red Mustang. "Robin, have I told you I love your car?" I asked, poking my head between the seats to make sure Niko was okay.

"At least five times," Robin replied, with a chuckle. "She's a glory."

"Damn straight," Niko added, sitting very still with his eyes closed. I'd taken off the surgical mask, and the smell of peppermint was still fumigating my sinuses, but I thought I could smell him a little; a thin stale unwashed hurting sliver of his usual scent.

Niko slept the entire traffic-clogged drive back to the hotel.

It took him a full minute of sitting and breathing to get up the willpower to stand and walk into the hotel - and it _was_ willpower, because I knew for sure he wasn't running on anything else. What he'd thrown up earlier had been green-brown bile and foam; there was nothing in his gut. But he was up and moving, pale and shaking, grey eyes determined. We got him to the room and he sat down on the bed and looked more like a wreck than I'd ever wanted to see my older brother looking. There was dried blood everywhere in his hair, flaking off his face, down in the hollow of his shoulder.

Not a full minute after we'd gotten him settled, Flay came knocking at the door. Niko caught him up to speed, while Robin started making phone-calls. I tried to get Niko to lay down, which he did at last and promptly went back to sleep, but not before eating half of one of the donuts Flay had brought. I'd decided the Wolf was now my favorite friend; not only had he brought a box of donuts, he'd brought coffee. I eagerly bolted two big bear claws and a cup of bitter black coffee. Flay munched complacently on his own and worked steadily at the gallon-sized cup of coffee in his other hand. His wounds from the fight already showed some serious healing - damn werewolves and their ability to heal so fast. Robin had a bear claw in hand and was waving it as he talked, slipping in and out of English with shocking ease. He paced the floor. Pecans scattered in his wake.

I could tell the difference between Greek and Rom, if only because some of the verb forms were vaguely familiar to me - but Robin wasn't using any of the curses I knew. I ate and thought about getting a shower - I was filthy and tired and reeked to the high heavens. Niko and I needed to get cleaned up before Flay decided we'd smell good on him. Snorting at the mental image of Flay trying to roll on Niko, like a dog with roadkill, and the subsequent slaughter that would follow, I creaked my way off the bed and went to shower. Even sitting still that long had made me stiffen up something awful.

Abbagor's lair had left a fuckton of bruises on my arms and shoulders and back. I had a stripe of bruising along one temple that I didn't even recall getting, and weird jagged blue marks and round ones from all the debris. I was filthy-stiff with dirt, too, and had to stand under the spray for almost a full minute before the water stopped running dark brown. I soaped up twice, washed my hair three times, and emerged at last feeling like I might be reasonably human. Monster. Thing.

Whatever.

I brought a washcloth with me and washed off Niko's hands and wiped his face. He slept the entire time, and it worried me. Niko didn't sleep like that. He woke up at pin-drop on shag carpet. He couldn't even sleep if the wind blew too hard, some nights. The man had the ears of a bat. Even I, half Auphe, didn't sleep so lightly. But now he slept hard, face slack and still. Flay watched me work but offered no comment. Robin's voice raised sharply, and I did recognize _that_ insult, but then he was nodding. I pushed at my wet hair, down around my shoulders in stringy clumps and still dripping, and went to rinse out my very dirty washcloth.

When I came back not a minute later, Robin was speaking in something that sounded like Russian. Maybe. Slavic, most definitely. Helluva phone bill, but it was his phone so what the hell did I care? I sat on the bed with Niko and watched him sleep. It was unnatural. It felt too weird.

So I started cleaning weapons, and wondered what Robin had done with the mud-spattered collection in the El Camino. Hell, what'd he done with our _car_? That leather seat was probably ruined as hell.

I put a better edge on a knife and watched Robin pace and gesture with his free hand.

Flay and I were amicably discussing takeout options for lunch when Robin hung up from his latest call and grinned at me - bright and brilliant and so self-satisfied I knew he'd figured it out. "Done. We're going to Lady Lucia, Florida. The other crown is there."

"Robin, you are as awesome as you say you are," I told him, sincerely, grinning back helplessly. "I'm sorry for ever doubting."

Niko chuckled dryly behind me. "Road-trip. I thought I'd done with those for a while."

I turned, relieved to find him awake. He smiled at me, but didn't move to sit up just yet. "Guess we can't escape that Rom wanderlust." I shrugged. Yeah, we weren't doing this for the fun of it.

"Annie, get your gun. Let's get this show on the road."

Robin laughed, and started humming "There's No Business Like Show Business." I wasn't surprised he was familiar with the Broadway musical. I had the feeling that as literate as Niko and I were, Robin was moreso. Flay just shook his head. He was a simple Wolf, Flay was, and did not care for such fripperies in life. Okay, hell if I knew that was true; he was probably just annoyed at us for acting like idiots.

Since there was no way Flay was being left behind, but no way we'd all fit in either of the cars comfortably, Robin made a call to another friend who promised to loan him an RV. Now that was traveling in _style_. It would be easier on Niko, too. Robin and Flay left, and after a quick lunch of sandwiches from the deli on the corner, Niko and I set about getting him clean. It was not easy, because was he dizzy and unsteady on his feet. The gash on his head was four inches long, but Niko and I were both puzzled as to why his hair was not shaved; the wound had been very carefully stitched, at least.

"Robin probably said something," Niko concluded, as he sat cross-legged in the tub and I poured another cupful of water through his hair. Niko's spine was ramrod straight, but I could read in the line of his shoulders that he was tired and hurting and running on nothing but stubborn. His hair was almost clean, though. Almost. I was still rinsing.

"Probably. Robin said he'd get your 'scrips filled." Niko made a protesting noise. I scowled. "I know you won't take the pain meds but you're sure as fuck going to take the antibiotics. As many bodies that were rotting in Abby's lair, there was _some_ kind of mutant killer infection waiting for your wounded ass. And you don't have my killer immune system."

Niko grunted a little, and wobbled, but stayed upright. "Very well, though I wonder if all Auphe have the same immune system."

I thought about it. "Probably. They eat carrion, you know."

"...I did not. Suddenly, many things become clear." Niko huffed a little laugh. "Carrion of what they kill or...?"

"Mostly what they kill, but they'll scavenge if they're feeling lazy." I rinsed Niko's hair out one last time. "But they fed me fresh, figured out pretty quick I couldn't eat anything already rotting." I only vaguely remembered that. "Maggots are gross. They squirm." I focused on Niko's hair under my fingers, and not the phantom sensation of something wriggling under my tongue, slick and slimy and alive. Yeah okay no. I gagged, swallowed, and put my forehead down on Niko's bare shoulder. "Fuck I think I just triggered myself." My stomach did a slow roll and I reached up to run a finger through my mouth, trying to convince my stupid brain there wasn't really a worm in there yuck yuck yuck they were bitter like bile and gritty and popped between the teeth and oh God...

Niko swore, and reached up to wrap his fingers in my wet hair. "Cal. Cal, stay with me. It's okay..."

It was mostly okay. I did throw up, twice, but after I brushed my teeth and sat on the bed with Niko for about half an hour I felt better. I didn't want to get up and go out, but Niko was in no shape to do the traditional before-the-trip shopping. Road-trips required food, drinks, and at least one crossword puzzle book. Also extra batteries for my Gameboy and the flashlight. We had a system going, and it was a damn good one.

When I got back from shopping, there was an RV parked on the curb and Niko was directing as Robin gathered up our bags. I joined in.

"What have you got?" Robin wanted to know, peering at the grocery sacks.

"Road-trip essentials. Also some extra ammo," I grunted, wincing as the strap of my duffle-bag pressed into my bruised shoulder. "Fuck, who know a cave-in could bruise to the bone?"

Robin snorted. "Laws of physics are so inconvenient." Mine and Niko's bags went into the tiny bedroom. I had a feeling Robin was going to stick Niko in there, too. Good. He didn't need to be up, not with his head.

"Damn straight. I want a refund on reality. Especially on yesterday. It sucked balls." I trooped out after Robin, and headed back into the hotel, rolling my shoulder against the ache. Wow that one stung. "How long will this trip take?"

"About two days, give or take traffic," Robin answered, holding the door for me. Niko was sitting on the floor, fussing with the lay of his swords in his bag.

"We made it in one from Louisiana to New York," Niko pointed out, helpfully.

"Yeah, and you were driving. I think Robin actually drives within twenty miles of the speed limit, dickwad." I watched him secure a knife inside the waistband of his pants. Niko took paranoia to a new and exciting level. Granted, I was the same; always always _always_ be armed.

Robin gathered up the last bag. I helped Niko off the floor.

Flay met us at the door. We were ready.

* * *

**A/N: **So! Because Niko was concious enough to answer questions and scored a 14 on the Glascow coma scale, he was not deemed an immediate crisis, which is why after the first barrage of tests, he was put in a holding room in the ER. They were still monitoring him, and he was within view of the nurse's station as a high-priority patient, but he was not actively dying at that moment. Seizures, vomting, disorientation, and personality changes are common signs and symptoms of any head injury. Don't worry, I'll be exploring that with great glee!

During Niko's seizure, caused by increased ICP (intercranial pressure) due to swelling of the bruised, injured brain, the the medical team is preparing for the possibility Niko might go into cariac or respiratory arrest. The "crash cart" that was brought in is a pre-fulled cart that has all the medication and equipment needed for such an eventuality. The doctor calls for diazepam or Valium, a fast-acting anti-seizure medication. You do stop breathing during a seizure, but Niko also experienced a temporary respiratory arrest. Thus they intubated him to maintain a stable airway, and to help protect his airway from any vomit. The white substance the nurse pushes after Niko seizes is propofol or Diprivan - it's a fast-acting hypnotic with amnesiac properties, and is used here to induce unconsciousness in preparation for the endotracheal intubation procedure.

The flat line on the screen was not his heart; most monitors these days have readings for heart activity, breathing, blood pressure, and oxygen content of the blood. Cal, in his confusion, misread the line that indicated the rhythm and speed of Niko's breathing.

And finally, the nurse gave Cal an alprazolam, or Xanax. His own exhaustion combined with the drug's fast-working effects conked him out for a while.


	15. Chapter Fifteen: Bargain

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used here!

For the record, I forgot to give a reference for the quote in chapter ten! When Cal and Robin make their "promise between monsters," it's a quote from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. It's the call of kinship Mowgli learns from Baloo the Bear to keep the other animals of the jungle from hurting him. "We be of one blood, you and I." The rest of the quote is from where Mowgli thanks Kaa the Python for saving him from the monkeys. " _'We be one blood, thou and I,' Mowgli answered. 'I take my life from thee tonight. My kill shall be thy kill if ever thou art hungry, O Kaa.'_ "

Thanks to Kin-outcast1 for her uber-prompt review! Thanks also to Genesblues, halesgirl101, Comuterale, and SensiblyTainted for reviewing!

* * *

_**Chapter Fifteen:** Bargain_

* * *

_Are you happy where you're sleeping?  
__Does he keep you safe and warm?  
__Does he tell you when you're sorry?  
__Does he tell you when you're wrong?  
_-"A Murder of One," by Counting Crows

* * *

It was dark when I woke up. I knew exactly where I was, though; curled up back-to-back with Niko in the back of the RV Robin had borrowed. I sat up, and looked around. It was quiet, with only the hum of the wheels on the road. I was surprised I'd slept at all; I'd only gone to lie with Niko because he needed to be watched, in case he had a seizure or something. I looked down at him. He was breathing easily, quiet in sleep. His face and throat were bruised seven ways 'till Sunday, and he even had a black eye on the left side. He looked hideous, but he was _alive._

I yawned, stretched, and got up. I had to piss, and I wanted to see why it was so quiet.

After my foray into the cramped bathroom, I found Robin asleep on the couch. I headed up to the front; Flay was driving, and he gave me a weary glance. I blinked at the clock. It was after midnight. "Need me to spell you?" I asked. "I can't sleep any more."

I hadn't had any nightmares, but I knew I was awake now. Insomnia, my old friend, we have got to stop meeting like this.

Flay nodded. He pulled over to the side of the road, and we swapped places. Robin slept through it, but someone else didn't. I'd only been driving for a minute when Niko came slouching along to crawl into the front seat. I knew he felt like shit, because he pulled both feet up into the seat and propped his chin on his knees, wrapping his arms around his legs. He looked like a kid, almost. He never really sat that way anymore; it was not a good stance to fight from. Not at all.

"Fuck are you doing up?" I whispered, softly.

"Hungry, mostly," he muttered back, but he wasn't moving. He closed his eyes; he was paper-white under the bruising.

I let him sit a minute. "How bad does it hurt?"

He thought about it, and sighed gently. "It is to a concussion as I am to you, little brother."

Well, if he could be smart-assed and cryptic about it, he wasn't immediately dying, but I'd had a concussion before and it wasn't fun. "Ouch. Double vision?"

He hummed an agreeing note. "And vertigo, and nausea. And I keep forgetting things, I think. I did ask you about your bruises?"

"You did. I showed them to you." And then we'd gotten him cleaned up and so on, so forth. "I think you should go lie down."

"Sick of it." He shook his head and shifted, reaching down to grab the plastic grocery sack he'd brought with him. I glanced briefly at it, then kept staring at the road in the headlights. The highway was damn empty, and I was clocking it at a good ninety. We were between cities; we weren't going to run into any police. I'd learned to drive from Niko, after all. Niko crunched a saltine cracker, and I drove, thinking about all the roads we'd traveled. I'd never been to Lady Lucia personally, but I'd been all over the country so many times I could get damn near anywhere, even without a map.

A little electric pop and crackle of static made me look over. Niko offered a wan smile as he held up the police-scanner. I chuckled. "Who got that, you or Robin?"

"Robin, surprisingly. Though I don't think I'll be driving much." Niko set it in the cupholder, a low hum of white static punctuated by calls and radio quips.

I fished in my pocket and pulled out my mp3 player. I held it out to Niko. "Give us some music, wingman."

"Navigator," Niko protested, but absently, and took my music player. He rummaged in his bag, and produced a little pair of mini speakers. He leaned forward and arranged everything on the dash with care, and then we had La Roux playing as a nice background noise. Niko sat back, and he had juice and crackers and I drove, letting the music keep my thoughts busy.

"Nik..." Partway through "In for the Kill" I realized there was something I ought to tell Niko.

"Mmm?" He gestured with a cracker when I paused.

"I...Robin...saw. My bruises, on the back of my neck. Your reminders. Back in the hospital." I grimaced. If I hadn't been so _out_ of it... "He wants to talk to me about it."

Niko was silent. Warily, I glanced at him, trying to read his mood. He didn't look pissed, just thoughtful, as he drank his apple juice. "Are you going to?"

Dammit, that wasn't the answer I wanted. "I don't want to."

"I know." Niko gave me an exasperated look. "But are you going to?"

"I'm asking you, fuckass."

"I'm telling you to think for yourself, bitch." Niko contemplated his last cracker. "Robin is your friend too. If this farce is up, you have equal rights to decide what you'll tell him."

I snarled. Of course Niko wouldn't make this _easy_. And why was he always _right_? I unclenched my hands from the steering wheel. Okay. Think. Make a choice. Robin wanted to talk to me; he'd try to do it when Niko wasn't around. That was the way they did it with suspected _victims_ of abuse. But I wasn't a victim. I could say what I wanted in front of Niko; hell, I could tell the truth and he wouldn't deny it. In fact, he was more likely to tell the truth than I was. It appealed to his perverse sense of honor. I didn't want to talk about it. Things _changed_ when the topic got brought up. I hated the way people looked at me. And how would Robin look at Niko after that? I knew Niko liked him. Hell, Robin liked Niko, and if I let it out that Niko beat me, then that almost-friendship was probably going to be gone. The monster brother, once again breaking up everything good for the normal brother.

Okay. So I had't ruined _everything_ in Niko's life. Sophia had done a lot of that to start with. Niko had done some of it himself - hell, the scars on his arms and legs that were perfect straight lines, those were all his. I hated those scars.

"What about you and Robin?" I asked.

"I'll handle it," Niko answered, drowsily. I glanced at him - his eyes were closed and hands limp. "Think of what you will do. He wants to talk to you."

"Yeah, about _you_," I returned, sharper than I meant. I was angry. I was a little frightened, too. What things could change. Robin knew more about us than most would ever know. "Dammit. I...I'm not doing it alone," I decided. No, Robin wouldn't single me out. I couldn't stand the way he'd treat me and I'd do something stupid. Or worse, flip out.

"Gonna bring Promise to the party?" Niko teased, but gently. His voice was soft, tired.

I snorted, and glanced at the roadsign I was passing. Nowheresville, Middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, 108 miles. Long drive. Good, I wasn't sleepy. "No. I want you there."

"Mmm, he won't like that."

"I know. He can shove it in his ear." I needed Nik to be there. He'd help me keep my head, keep my temper. It wasn't that I _couldn't_ do that on my own, because I could, but if we were going to be talking about Niko and if Robin started smearing Niko, well, I wouldn't be able to take it. "I don't want to do it at all."

"I know. I'm sorry." I glanced at Niko again. He gave me a dark-eyed look, face pale in the reflected glow of the headlights. He looked almost like a ghost, impressions only and memories giving me the details.

"Why sorry?"

"Life sucks and I can't do damn about it."

"You could pass me a Twinkie."

That got me a smile. It also got me a Twinkie.

Robin got up at too-damn-early in the morning and wandered up into the argument over where we could get breakfast. He stared at both of us - I could see him in the rearview mirror. I was all for Kripsy Kreme donuts, but Niko was adamantly against it. He was also against Hardees and Captain D's. Okay, so I wasn't a big fan of fish for breakfast either, but I was damn hungry at this point and I wanted some coffee.

"Only _you_ would be against donuts, you syphilitic son of a two-headed cow."

"You mother was sister to a jackal and shat you out fucking him," Niko returned, grouchily. "Look. Waffle House. Compromise, you halitosis-ridden piece of shit?"

"Compromise, you dog-fucking whoreson." I put on the blinker and pulled into the exit ramp. "Good morning, Robin."

"Morning," he managed, looking bemused. "Halitosis?"

Niko flipped him the bird.

"Niko's a cranky bitch this morning," I reported. I was concentrating mostly on figuring out which lane I needed to be in to turn. The lines on the road were faded and dim, and the rattling rust-trap of a pick-up truck in front of me was straddling both lanes. There was a pair of pit-bulls in the back and a tangle of baling wire, and a faded Confederate flag. Welcome to the South, fuckers.

"I see. Where are we?" Robin wanted to know. He rubbed a hand over his face. "I didn't know you could drive, Caliban."

"I've been driving since I was thirteen," I told him. "Niko had to sit me on a book to see over the steering wheel, though." I'd always been small for my age. Now, though, I knew it wasn't really 'small,' it was genetically slender bones and and the cheetah-lean predatory build of an Auphe. "We're somewhere in Georgia. Navigator there has the map and the town, if you can get it out of his cranky self."

Niko winged a phrase my way in Rom that suggested I did unsanitary acts of depravity with my dead relatives in public places. "About a hundred miles outside Atlanta, Georgia. We'll arrive at our destination before lunch, barring any traffic accidents."

I found my turn and eased the giant RV into a parking place. I was used to a tank of a car, but this thing was huge. It was a little bit like the time I'd gone on a joyride in the fire department's ambulance in some Midwestern town I couldn't remember the name of. They hadn't caught me, though it'd been close. Niko wasn't the only one with an arrest record. Mine was just shorter. I grabbed my mp3 player and turned off the police scanner. Niko unfolded from his little ball of misery very slowly. Robin offered a hand out. Niko glared at him and I reached out and nudged Robin's hand out of stabbing range.

"I said he was cranky. Maybe I should rephrase that to 'homicidal.' Offer help _after_ he falls on his ass," I instructed Robin.

Robin raised an eyebrow but backed off and let me squirm out of the front seat. "Really?"

"Really." I stretched and yawned, and when I rolled my shoulders they popped. "I tried to get him to take a pain pill, but he's a stubborn-ass bastard."

"And _you_ are an insufferable snot-nosed brat," Niko said, but he was up on his feet and walking, wobbling just a little. He put a hand on my shoulder and leaned on a bruise, but I stood straight under the ache and supported him. "Let's get Flay and get something to eat. The sooner we do the sooner we can keep on."

He sounded outright ticked off, but his hand on my shoulder wasn't hurting beyond the bruise. He leaned on me but he wasn't actively trying to hurt me. He was struggling to keep his balance and hold himself together. Niko hated being vulnerable or weak, hated to show it. He'd never been a docile patient and he wasn't going to start now. I was resigned to putting up with him; Niko in various stages of pissed off was something I was used to. Niko had a temper. I had a temper. We'd gotten it from Sophia. We'd learned when in a temper, throwing shit, screaming, and hitting your blood relatives was a-okay.

Which it wasn't, but sometimes you just can't help but model what you've learned.

Flay devoured pounds of bacon, and Niko managed dry toast and eggs with juice. Robin coaxed and wheedled, but though Niko took the antibiotics he was not, would not, was never going to take that pain pill. I ate my waffles and watched the entertainment. Niko's language was getting progressively more foul and his tone sharper the longer Robin pushed. And I could see it starting to get to Robin.

About the time Niko started really getting personal with the insults, I decided it was time to intervene. I pushed my empty plate away.

"Come on, Hopalong, I'm going to the bathroom. Buddy system."

"It's my head, you dickwad, not my leg," Niko growled, but got up and wobbled along with me.

He was green, but he did not throw up. He washed his face and leaned heavily on the counter, studying the bruising in the mirror. I walked up beside him and stared at his reflection. He met my gaze in the glass, and offered a tiny twitch of the lips. Not quite a smile, but a tiny attempt at it just for me. Just for me.

I leaned towards him, careful not to unbalance him. He bent stiffly and kissed the top of my head.

"Stop taking the piss out of Robin."

"He doesn't know when to quit," Niko complained into my hair.

"He's trying to help. Cheer up, Grouch, he thinks your ass is hot." I fully expected the biting pinch on the back of my arm for that jab. Niko growled at me, wordless, and straightened with an effort. I growled back at him, and when it reverberated around the tiny tiled grungy bathroom, I could _really_ tell it wasn't a human noise. Not even remotely. It was alien and strange and straight from my nightmares. I stopped, shocked.

Niko eyed me, and said, calmly as if I hadn't just freaked myself out, "I do not care what he thinks about my ass. If he's annoying me, he's annoying me."

For a moment I breathed, and the way Niko took it all in stride helped. "Just...try to be nicer?" I offered.

"Or what? You'll growl at me?" And there was that tired smirk.

It made me laugh, and I growled at him again.

Back on the road, Niko not only apologized to Robin, he sat in the front seat and coaxed Robin into going over some Rom with him. Verbs and simple shit. I laid in the floor and played my GameBoy. Flay napped.

I woke up with my cheek smooshed against my screen and button impressions on my ear. Robin had just put the RV into park, and he cut the engine. I sat up, rubbing at my aching ear. Flay was awake. Niko was passed out asleep in the front seat. Robin turned and grinned at me. We were here. Lady Lucia, Florida. And if I'd thought it was hot in NYC, it was a goddamn furnace here in Florida. The air was humid and muggy, and it was a furnace out there. Spring - I'd forgotten the southern states bypassed that entirely and jumped straight into summer. I stepped out of the RV, stopped, turned right back around and promptly shed my jacket. I didn't give a fuck who saw my guns. They were Rom, they wouldn't care, and I wanted to not melt.

I couldn't ditch the longsleeve shirt, but I was used to that.

Flay started panting the moment he hit outside. It was hilarious. Niko, damn him, looked astonishingly comfortable in his T-shirt and jeans and aviator sunglasses. He stared across the field of dead yellow grass that separated us from the cluster of RVs that was our destination; the air between here and there shimmered with heat.

"It's closer than the inside of Hephaestus's jockstrap," Robin said, as he shaded his eyes. He hissed in outrage when he caught sight of his shirt darkening around his neck and underarms. "I'm _perspiring_." He plucked at his green shirt, pulling it away from his chest with fastidious fingers. "Sweat, _actual_ sweat, and there's not even sex involved! It's an abomination. I'm waiting in the air conditioning." He turned on a heel. Niko and I both grabbed at his sleeves.

"Fuck no. You're our bargaining chip," I told him. "Suck it up, cupcake. If Flay can stand it, so can you." I was feeling sticky and damp myself, but I knew from experience that I'd get over it and acclimate in about an hour or so.

"He's panting too hard to breathe, much less complain," Robin grumbled.

Unfortunate, but true. Flay, while back in what passed as his human form, was panting with gusto. It was an odd look; a well-dressed albino man with a mane of white hair and a continuously moving red tongue. Flay's tongue was dotting his shirt with saliva as he worked on rolling his sleeves up.

The Sarzo clan had apparently been buddies with the Bassa, way back when. Now, they'd settled in a backwater town on the edge of the Everglades; the caravan of RVs and trucks and trailer-campers had a more long-term look than usual, bleached and squeaking under the hard blue sky. It was so open here, and so empty; after living in New York for so long I felt small and exposed...but something in me also felt comfortable and at ease. (The Auphe liked the wild places left in the world.) There were dark-skinned, dark-hair people out and about in lawn-chairs and watching children play in the dirt, but as we approached the crowd thinned dramatically. Flay was a werewolf, Robin and I were obviously _gadje_, but Niko...well. Niko lead the way, head high, and barely a wobble in his step. We got the welcoming squad; an ancient sharp-eyed old woman and a couple of burly men in wife-beaters and bearing bats.

I wanted to laugh. Baseball bats. Seriously.

Niko moved into the shade of a tree near the very first RV and waited for them to come to us. I stood at his side, equal, braced and ready.

The man with the huge mustache spoke first, eyeing us with suspicious disfavor. "What brings you here? We do not run a boarding kennel." He sneered at Flay. Flay yawned, unimpressed, showing a great deal of teeth.

"We're in search of something. To buy." Niko cut straight to the point.

That perked everyone's ears up on their side. Money to be had - not that every Gypsy was a swindler, a cheater, a thief and a liar, but stereotypes exsist for a reason. And they lived poor, from the looks of it. None of the RVs were new. Mustache-man looked Niko up and down. "Vayash, yes?"

The Vayash were one of the few clans to sport blondes; from the time they'd spent in Europe, they'd intermarried with the northern Greeks. I'd seen the photos in the bottom of Sophia's fortune-teller's trunk; dark-skinned solemn groups of people, with bright blonde heads speckled in here and there like patches of sun. Niko still had the pictures in a scrapbook somewhere, nostalgia and a bitter reminder.

"Yes. Our mother was Vayash." Niko tipped his head to me inclusively. There was a world of meaning behind that statement; we were the People, but we'd not been raised as the People, steeped in tradition and ancient rules.

Mustache-man nodded and frowned. "That hair, those eyes, that nose. Vayash. Always polluting themselves with the _gadje_. We thought they'd seen the error of that particular way." He was looking at Robin and Flay...not at me. That was a free pass if ever I'd been given one. They didn't know what I was, though from those words I had a feeling they at least knew something about Sophia. This time, though, I was just human to them: polluted, second class, not _true_ Rom, but a definite step up from 'abomination.'

If only they knew.

"Our acquaintance," said Niko, gesturing to Robin with a careless hand, "has a good deal of money. Perhaps you can help him spend it...if you have what we're looking for."

Robin's groan was nearly inaudible, but considering his money-grubbing ways, that was the equivalent of a ringing endorsement. All the dark eyes focused on him with a look I'd seen in Robin's own eyes more than once. Baseball bats hung at rest and white teeth flashed expansively under a black mustache.

"We have many, many things. Surely one will be what you seek. I am Branje." He swept an arm towards the first RV. "We'll sit, we'll talk, we'll drink. We'll take very good care of our new friends." Yeah, it was bullshit and we knew it, and Branje knew we knew it, but we all knew how this game went.

Niko smiled faintly, a frozen ghost-smile.

Their tricksters against ours, going mano a mano. As much fun as it would be to watch Niko and Robin wreck their shit, the trailer smelled of incense and cigarette smoke. I shook my head at the dark interior and sat in the shade of the awning by the front steps. Flay sat with me, and the door clicked shut over our heads. I sighed and reached up to pull my ponytail off the back of my neck. I was all over with sweat, and we seemed to be attracting mosquitoes even in the heat of the day. I smushed one off my knuckles, leaving a little ash-grey smear and a splotch of blood on the knee of my jeans.

I closed my eyes against the summer-esque heat and felt it penetrating to my bones. I was hot but the longer I stayed out here the more bearable it felt. I'd never want to live down here, especially not in high summer, but... Flay was still panting, noisily, and I cracked an eye took look at him.

"Dude, I won't tell Niko if you want to go sit in the RV," I told him.

He glanced at me, squinting a little. "Niko. He is good Alpha?"

I blinked, startled by the question. "Uh. Yeah. He's a good Alpha." I thought about it a moment. "I mean, he's got a hella temper, but if you do good..."

"Better than Cerberus?"

I hesitated over that one. Niko could be cruel, Niko could be perverse, Niko could be sadistic. But he wouldn't kill for failure like Cerberus would, just to make an example; he'd kill to kill. Everything he caught and played with died in the end; he'd always kill it. But unless Flay here made a huge mistake, or tried to get at me, then I didn't think it was too likely Niko would try to off him.

"Yes."

Flay reached over and tapped my shoulder, right on a bruise. I didn't flinch, but he nodded. "Cruel to his pup."

No telling how he'd known. I shrugged, and offered a lying smile. "I'm a slow learner sometimes. He's good to me."

Flay eyed me, then nodded slowly. It occurred to me that in a Wolf pack, a good Alpha wasn't questioned. Flay didn't seem disturbed, or upset about the bruises. Just curious, fitting together the puzzle that was Niko. I could have told him not to bother; Niko was a self-contained enigma and it was hard as hell to read him if you didn't know how. I'd seen the Kin dynamics at work now; they were rough as dogs with eachother, and a little casual cruelty was nothing. Animals and monsters...I'd fit in a little too well with that. Looking back I could see that, and how it'd unsettled me a lot.

Hindsight. Always 20/20.

Flay suddenly reached out and ruffled my hair. I swore at him, but he was getting to his feet. Panting, he headed off to the RV. I watched him go and straightened my ponytail. What the hell had that been about? We hadn't exactly been _friendly_ with one another, but I didn't hate the guy. Still. That had been weird.

I was almost drowsing in the heat when the door slammed open against the side of the RV, nearly clipping me in the head. I came flying to my feet, heart racing, when Robin came storming out. He was cursing at the top of his lungs in Romany, and I was learning some new phrases mixed in with the words I already knew.

Pointing back at the RV, Robin swore again, then switched to English. I'd overheard him telling Niko once that no language was quite as good as English for spitting disgust and disdain. French was close, but English won out for sheer crudeness. "Soul-sucking harridan. Shriveled toothless old crone. Put your grasping malicious fingers away. You won't get a single penny from me!"

Niko stepped down beside me, boots thudding gently against the dirt. He was pale as a ghost and I could read the pain in the tight lines of his clenched jaw, his pinched lips, the furrow between his brows and the tense lines around his eye. His head was _killing_ him, but he was up and walking and thinking clearly. A broken skull could not stop this man. "Negotiations have begun," he remarked, dryly, and even his voice was thin and strained with pain.

"They have it?" I asked, and then slipped down to sit again.

Niko lowered himself down slowly to sit with me and watch the show. "Probably, but they won't say so. Abelia-Roo is a cagey opponent."

She came rocketing out of the RV shaking a wrinkled fist and waving an elaborately carved cane. So the old woman was the leader in negotiations? A little surprising, since the Rom were pretty patriarchal, but then she looked _ancient_ and respecting your elders was most important. That was why so many of the insults I knew in Rom had to do with fucking your ancestors. Abelia-Roo, not sharing Robin's beliefs about English, howled out a string of insults that I could only half parse but had Robin's eyes widening.

"My hair? My _hair_? You prune-teated old goat, you'd best take that back. Take it back or I'll rain fire on this miserable campsite until it's wiped from the face of the earth."

I glanced at Niko curiously. "Can he actually do that?"

Niko snorted. There was the tart smell of blackberry brandy on his breath. He'd swallowed the traditional thimbleful to start the business at hand. "Doubtful. If he could, every two-star restaurant in the city would be in smoking ruins."

"True that." I watched as two gnarled fingers went up behind the white head like horns and Abelia-Roo made a sneering comment.

"A leash?" Goodfellow shot back. "You're sadly mistaken, witch from hell. You've never kept one of my kind on a leash. Oh, I think perhaps you _worshiped_ us as lowly cave apes should, and if anyone wore the leash, it was you." He spat onto the dirt at her feet. "Lying, thieving human."

This time she did switch to English. "Lying, thieving puck." Her spit actually hit Robin's shoe.

Ah, it was like old times. I propped my chin on my knees and helpfully swatted a mosquito off Niko's wrist. "How long before they start fucking eachother's great grandparents, you think?"

"Well, we only got up to parents in the RV," Niko reported, leaning against me. "It may take a while."

"Do we have time for that?" I mused, trying to count days. Everything wanted to blur together. The heat was frying my brain. "We could hurt someone. That would speed things along nicely, I bet."

Niko made a contemplative noise. "I did take exception to Branje's face."

"Funny, so did I. I think it's the mustache." I closed my eyes as Niko leaned his head against mine. Robin and Abelia-Roo were still going at it, torrents of fast-paced insults interspersed with spitting at one another.

"It is an exceptionally unfortunate mustache. We could rip it off and feed it to him. That would be sure to inspire a little spirit of cooperation." Niko's voice sounded funny when I could both hear it through the air and feel it vibrating through his body into mine.

"Well, let's see if Robin can make it." I reached up and brushed my fingers over Niko's braid, not pulling. He sighed gustily into my hair. It was really too hot for him to be practically on top of me, but if he needed to lean, then I'd let him lean. I was just going to be sweaty as fuck and flushed bright cherry red on top of it. Not an attractive look for anyone.

The hours whiled by and the sun began to drop. The air cooled. Robin and Abelia-Roo kept at it. I was impressed. I was also bored and hot and tired of all the bullshit. Flay came slinking out to join us as the sun began to set. As he did, Robin came stalking over, outraged frustration written on every inch of his face.

"I give up. I do. That maniacal old crone cannot be reasoned with. Not now, not ever." His hand moved up to nervously smooth his curly hair - inspired by the humidity, it was curling more wildly than ever. "She cursed me, said my hair would fall out before the next full moon." He examined his palm carefully for deserters. "My _hair_," he muttered, still shocked over the audacity.

"So Gypsy curses are really a thing?" I asked.

"I, an immortal creature, am standing here with a half Auphe and a walking talking wolf. Yes, something as ludicrous as a Gypsy curse exists." He rubbed the heels of his hands over tired eyes and snapped, "I spent an entire year impotent thanks to one."

Niko ignored the TMI and raised an eyebrow. "They won't sell it, then?"

"Sell it?" Robin repeated with disgust. "They won't even admit to having it. They have, however, tried to sell me everything else under Zeus's infinite regard."

"...after all this time? Damn, she's good." I looked at the old woman with new respect.

"She would eat every one of my salesmen for breakfast and still have room for a champagne chaser," Robin said, glumly.

I nodded to Niko and got up, strolling casually out into the falling dusk. Niko smiled, however, and got to his own feet, saying something to Robin. I wandered, and closed in on Branje. Drinking from a brown, unlabeled bottle, Branje didn't notice me pussy-footing it up behind him until it was too late. I'd learned from the best and took him down clean; a knee in his gut and a knife at his neck, flat on his back. Branje was tough, though. He tried to go for his own knife. He froze and howled when I removed half his fleshy thick earlobe with a flick of my wrist.

"My men will kill you," he hissed, glancing that way...and then he swore again.

Knife steady, I glanced that way, hearing a rough grunt. Niko had just put a textbook perfect knee into one of the tough's gut; he snatched the man's baseball bat as he fell. Niko delivered a solid kick to the man's head and he was down for the count. Niko hefted the bat up onto his shoulder, breath panting through clenched teeth for pain, and there was a wild look in his eye as he stood poised. A batter on the plate waiting for the home run.

The other man hesitated, then lunged in. I grimaced - stupid, suicidal.

Niko swung the bat in a perfect home-run hit.

The man's forearm snapped in half with a gunshot crack that echoed around the clearing.

Niko reversed his swing and brought it down overhand, shattering the man's opposite collarbone and probably the first few ribs, too. He went down with a scream, and Niko kicked him hard in the face to make him shut up, knocking him out. Niko's lips were peeled back from his teeth in a snarl, his stance too wide, his balance swaying, and there was blood spattered across his too pale face.

I looked down at Branje, grinned, and took the rest of his ear off in one neat slice.

He was tough - after the first howl he was silent.

For a moment nobody moved or even breathed.

The utter silence in the clearing was broken by clapping. I looked up, and Abelia-Roo was grinning widely. There wasn't a tooth in her head. "Now, here are ones who know how to negotiate," she said, approvingly. "Here are _men_."

Look at that. Grandma had balls to put all of ours to shame and was soulless as Robin had accused her of being. I was halfway hoping Niko hadn't killed anyone, but his control was shot right now, just like his balance. "You want the Calabassa, do you? Do you have any idea of the crown's purpose?"

I wiped my knife off on Branje's shirt and sheathed it. "Granny, we couldn't give a shit if we tried."


	16. Chapter Sixteen: Talent

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used here!

A special thanks to Kin-outcast1 for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to Comuterale and halesgirl101 for reviewinG!

* * *

_**Chapter Sixteen:** Talent_

* * *

_Did you ever demand any answer?  
__The who the what and the reason why  
__And did you ever question the setup?  
__And did you stand aside and let them choose while you took second best?  
__Did you let them skim the cream off and then give to you the rest?  
__Did you settle for the shoddy and did you think it right  
__To let them rob you right and left and never make a fight  
__Never make a fight, never make a fight  
_-"Ballad of Accounting," Karan Casey

* * *

So apparently I should have cared about what the crown did. Abelia-Roo was more than happy to gloat over details as to why I should've. So the crown had looked too plain but been too wanted for being just a pretty bauble, right? Right. The Bassa had made the simple-looking piece of metal for a very dark and infinitely practical reason. They'd made a tool for a thief; wear the crown and take anything from a person you wanted. Their life, their knowledge...their power. Suddenly, I knew why Caleb wanted it, and why he'd stolen a little red-headed girl with healing scars on her cheeks.

There'd been more unpleasant information dancing on the tip of the old Gypsy woman's tongue, but at the last second she decided to keep it to herself For fun or for profit, and knowing her and her kind, it was for the pure malicious fun of it. Yeah, I knew her kind, alright. Maybe Niko's sadism was hereditary after all. Who knew?

I _did_ know his current foul mood was because his head was in excruciating pain. As we sat in the firelight, me with the crown held between my hands, he was pale and there was a thin sheen of cold sweat on his face. He was shivering, despite the heat, and if his jaw clenched any tighter he was going to crack a tooth. He'd moved too much and overtaxed himself; he hadn't fainted but he'd come really damn close to it. And he'd thrown up twice. No-one had seemed to mind, too busy hurrying off the battered and broken men he'd taken down with ease.

Branje was relieving Goodfellow of his duffelbag of cash, a large white square of gauze already stained red over one side of his head. Yeah, I hadn't made any friends with that one, but I didn't give a damn. I still didn't like the bastard's face. Hell, he should be grateful - I'd only been looking to improve his ugly mug. Not everyone who sliced off your ears could say that, now could they? Heh. I watched as Abelia-Roo shouldered her way past Branje to unzip the bag and start counting the cash.

It was an astonishingly steep fee - I couldn't even think in numbers with that many zeroes. Robin was sacrificing an awful damn lot for us, and I wasn't sure why anymore.

He crossed to our side, and held out a little orange bottle to me, wordlessly. I took it as he said, "We've been invited to dinner. It might be best to stay for a while...you never know when you'll need allies." He looked reluctant, though, and I didn't blame him.

"Yeah, okay." I nodded, eyed the dosage of the pain medication in my hands, then shook out a single white pill and held it out to Niko. "Take it. I know, I know, and I don't give a flying fuck, take it now."

Niko gave me such an evil eye it was a wonder I didn't wither into dust on the spot. His lip curled, and his snarl was wordless. He was _pissed off_ royally, in a truly spectacular fashion I hadn't really seen since he'd had Sophia to push all his buttons at once. I could get him mad, sure, but he loved me still under it. Sophia and he, they'd hated one another, and the rages they'd worked eachother into had been awe-inspiring and terrifying.

I didn't back down or flinch, simply stared right back at him. Inside, though I was bracing for a blow. When he got this mad and I pushed back, he'd knock me a good one. And I was pushing.

His lips twitched, and there was a toxic cocktail of anger, disgust, and dislike in his face, but very, very delicately he took the pill from my palm and swallowed it dry. He moved with a certain slow deliberation that made me tense where I sat, knuckles blanching white on the crown I still held.

"Happy?" he asked, in his softest, silkiest, and most dangerous voice.

I had to swallow twice before I could answer. "Yes. Thank you." I was proud that my voice didn't wobble. See, I was good.

Niko smiled, tight-lipped and hard, and it was one of the more terrifying expressions I'd seen in a while. Shadows painted stark in the firelight, the bruising spread black over half his face, and the sharp bitter scent of his rage...

Robin swore faintly behind me. Flay said nothing at all but I could see the way his eyes went wide, nostrils flaring.

Brave, foolish Robin tried to get Niko to go lie down instead of eating supper with us. Niko declined, and ate about five bites before he sat and was still beside me, burning pale and determined not to break down and show his weakness to everyone. I didn't know how he was doing it and I wanted to shake him until his stupid injured head popped off and rolled away. But I knew that'd just be asking for one hell of a beating, and I didn't want to find out if Niko could deliver while in this state. I suspected he fucking well could, after he'd half-killed those two men.

At least dinner was entertaining in one aspect. Abelia-Roo apparently didn't think much of Robin's manhood when it came to bargaining, but it seemed she had other measurements of manhood... Her hands were anywhere but on her fork, and the tables were turned; Robin had suddenly become the hunted, not the hunter, prey of a wizened, bare-gummed predator. She was having all the fun in the world. Robin looked alternately shocked and dismayed as he fended off her amorous advances.

He bolted for safety as soon as he reasonably could. Niko and I made our way along far, far more slowly, Flay bringing up the rear. For once I didn't mind. After the hair-ruffle, I doubted our speech-challenged Wolf was going to play Tickle the Spleen with me once my back was turned.

As we crossed near the fire, one of the Rom girls was playing a fiddle. I felt Niko's all-over flinch as the tune washed over us, and I knew exactly what had gotten him as he pulled away from me and made a beeline for the poor girl. I sighed and went after him; in this mood he wasn't going to be very civil.

"Give me that, you tone-deaf moron," he demanded, holding an imperious hand out to her.

"W-what?" she stammered.

I stepped up beside him. "He wants to tune it for you. He's got perfect pitch," I told her. Niko did this all the time for the street buskers we met. He couldn't stand an instrument that was out of true.

She hesitated, then passed it over. There was wary fear in her eyes. I wondered how well she'd known the men Niko and I had hurt today. Niko's fingers curled around the delicate instrument carefully, and he plucked at the strings, humming to himself. In moments he had it tuned properly. He offered her a flicker of a half-smile. She was watching his hands, not his face. "You...do you know how to play?" she asked, almost challenging.

She was pretty, with her dark dark hair and her dark sloe eyes. I wondered if Sophia had ever looked like her, this girl so beautiful and winsome in the firelight, heavily pregnant and slyly defiant. I decided that no, Sophia had been _more_, been wilder and more daring. Niko eyed her, and something in him softened a fraction.

"I did. I don't have time for it now." He offered her back the fiddle.

She pursed her lips. "Amano was my friend. You broke his arm. You owe me a song." She thrust the bow at him. She was brave and I wanted to smile.

Niko did smile, small and cold, one of his barely-there ghost smiles. He took the bow, and carefully fitted the fiddle under his chin. I watched. Niko hadn't played for at least two years, since his last violin had been broken in a fight to get away from the Auphe. And even then I couldn't remember the last time he'd really dusted it off to play as he once had, for hours in the summer dark while the fireflies and moths and bats and I had all gathered close to listen. We'd been younger, then, and I hadn't cared so much about monsters.

A trying chord. A few skipped notes. There was sneering disdain and triumph in the girl's eyes, right up until Niko met her gaze and smiled. With a startlingly loud opening note, his fingers danced a bright and lively tune from the strings, aggressive and daring. I recognized the song as an old Irish folk tune, and I knew the lyrics too. I hummed along, absently, then sang softly under my breath: _'In the morning we built a city, in the afternoon walked through its gates...'_ I didn't have a really good voice for singing. Neither of us did. But it'd once made us money and so I supposed it didn't matter much.

Niko finished the song with a challenging flourish, and handed the fiddle back. "My debt is paid."

She huffed, but she took her instrument back and said nothing more. Niko turned and walked away without looking back. I walked with him, and decided the pain pill had taken off the edge, or the music had been cathartic. Either way he looked less tense and the scent of anger on him was dim and faded.

Robin met us just outside the firelight. "I didn't know you could play the fiddle."

"Violin. I took band in school for a little while," Niko admitted, as we all four walked back to the RV.

The night was vibrantly alive, full of the calls of nightbirds, the buzzing of insects, the wild eerie cries of a pack of coyotes nearby. It was almost deafeningly loud, but differently loud from the city. It was clean noise, good noise, and the rank smell of the swamp and the clean humid air stirred something in the back of my brain that felt too much like the darkness itself. Too much like the taste of blood and the acid-poison poetry of the Auphe. I hung close to Niko and breathed in his smell - engine oil, dried blood, faded anger, alcohol - and felt more like myself. Niko was familiar, my anchor to all things good, and I closed the door to the RV firmly behind me, shutting out the wild darkness. It felt clean and modern and so very small and trapping in here. I shook my head, and helped Niko to the bed.

An hour later I was lying on my stomach in the dark, listening to the road under the wheels and feeling Niko's hand move over my back. With my face buried in the pillow, I breathed and felt his strong, calloused fingers map my back in the dark; spanning the width between my shoulderblades, tracing the curve of my ribs, running down the arch of my spine. Over and over, from the nape of my neck down to the top of my hips, dipping into each hollow between ribs, tracing every protrusion and every contour. Niko lay on his side beside me, breathing softly.

I twitched as his thumb pressed too deeply into a bruise.

He smoothed his fingers lightly over the ache in apology.

It was...almost hypnotic and incredibly soothing. I couldn't sleep, but I was relaxed heavily into the mattress and could hardly think straight. It occurred to me Niko probably ought to be asleep, but he seemed content to stay up and learn the surface of my back like a map. Except he probably already knew it - he'd done this for me for years. I laid very still and breathed and let the empty dark fill my head and knew I was safe as safe and wasn't alone. The Calabassa under the pillow was cold as my fingers laid over it. I'd half expected an Auphe to pop up and steal this one, too, but apparently they were letting me keep it...for now. Niko's hand moved up and down under my shirt, callouses rough against my bare skin, and I breathed. I could hardly smell anything, only Niko and clean linens, and it was okay.

His hand paused, spread and flat and heavy right over my heart.

I wasn't asleep, but I was right on the edge of it, unable to actually fall asleep but too relaxed to really do anything else.

Niko sighed deeply, draped his arm over my back, and rolled over just a fraction; his shoulder laid on top of mine. "Tell me a story," he whispered, which didn't make any sense in my pudding brain. It still didn't when I woke up just a little more.

"Dunno any," I muttered into my pillow.

"Yes you do." Niko yawned.

I thought about it, then started saying the first thing that came mind. "The sun was shining on the sea, shining with all his might: he did his best to make the billows smooth and bright - and this was odd because it was the middle of the night." I had most of the poem memorized, and Niko had it down pat. As often as he'd read _"The Walrus and the Carpenter"_ to me when I'd been small... Well I'd always been a morbid kid.

Niko drifted off before I'd finished my sleepy recitation. I finished it anyway, and decided maybe I might be able to doze off, just a little.

I don't know if I actually did or not; I was in that weird half-lucid inbetween stage when I felt the RV slow and rumble to a stop. I lifted my head and twisted to look over my shoulder. Niko stirred, muttered half-asleep, and Flay was hissing at Robin. Robin was sitting up, hungover as all hell. I sat up, brushed aside the curtain, and stared in dismay at the police car behind us, clearly visible in the early morning light. Fuck. I doubted Flay had an official license, and I sure as hell didn't. Niko didn't either. Robin was the only one with an appropriate piece of paper and he was probably _still_ drunk with all the Gypsy moonshine he'd drunk last night.

Niko sat up beside me, looked out the window with the dawn sunshine lighting his bruised face, and said something exceedingly foul in Rom.

Walking towards us, the cop was freshly stamped from the hero cookie cutter. Square jaw, wide shoulders, impenetrable sunglasses paired with an impenetrable expression. Disciplined, stalwart, a noble defender of the order - one who was going to arrest all our asses and start so much trouble there'd be no end to it. It couldn't happen. We couldn't get caught. But how the hell were we going to get out of this one?

I didn't have the answer to that, but as it turned out, I didn't have to.

I felt it like a knife to the guts; the Auphe opened a gate barely two feet over the cop's head and dropped down onto him like a leopard off a branch. The impact knocked our noble cop to his hands and knees. Even as he reached up to claw at his attacker, an infinity of metal teeth found the strip of skin bared over his starched collar and passed through it as if it'd been no more substantial as flesh-coloured mist. The arterial gush was immediate, and in less than five seconds he'd bled out. He twitched but he didn't get up. He never would again. The Auphe rode him all the way down; lean and sleek, the bundle of sinew and claws gave the new day a dripping crimson smile.

It raised a clawed hand and sent a careless wave my way.

Then it sank teeth and claws into the man it had just killed, and gated away. Tarnished silver rolled over them, and they were gone, leaving only bloodstains on the verge and an empty cop car with the lights still flashing.

I let out an explosive breath I hadn't even realized I was holding. "Oh fuck."

"...did that bastard just _wave_ at us?" Niko wanted to know, so calmly it was surreal.

"Yeah, he did." I was shaking, I realized. Jittering. "He did."

"Caliban, do you mean to tell me one of your _poutanas yie_ family just helped us?" Robin asked, standing at the foot of the bed and squinting in the light.

"I think they just did." I swallowed and leaned against Niko. He put his hand on my head and let me hide my face in his shoulder. God, all I could see was the man going down, blood at his throat...

"Let's go now, before someone sees," Niko pointed out.

That was what we did. It wasn't like we had any other options.

The shaking went away after a bit of just sitting with Niko. He didn't say anything or make any judgements, just as always. He let me sit, let me breathe, and pulled lightly at my hair. It felt good, not enough to hurt, just enough to pull, and after a while I felt better. Niko let me sit up.

"I can tell they're coming, now," I said to Niko. I belatedly realized Robin was sitting on the foot of the bed.

"Oh?" Niko asked.

"I can feel them opening the gate. In my head." And in my gut. It wasn't quite the wordless knowledge of where they were, but... "It's how they know where everybody is on the hunts. So you don't get tangled." I knew that, remembered it, had learned it well. I'd always been a good student, for Niko and the Auphe. I took a deep breath.

"Why are they helping us?" Robin asked. "Last time they took the crown. They must know you have the other."

"I don't..." Well, that wasn't true: I couldn't say I didn't _know_ because I had an idea and it was a damn unpleasant one. "I told them I'd lead a hunt. They're watching me to see if I'll make good on it, I think, and I can't do that if I'm locked up somewhere." I bit my lip. "I dunno what I'm going to do about it. Caleb's not near enough of a challenge." Though that would have been really convenient.

"Is that what you said, on the roof, that night?" Niko wanted to know.

"Uh, yeah." I glanced at him. He looked thoughtful.

Robin was shaking his head. "Caliban. What kind of hunt are you going to be leading?" He looked pale, like he was only just realizing _what_ I was. Niko was calm, accepting, quiet. No fear or worry. Robin had new wariness in his green eyes.

"I said I don't know. I can't...really think of anything that would be good enough to call them in on." Niko was giving me a puzzled look, and so I tried to explain it to him. "They're ticked off because we killed a lot of them during Everything. But I had...had...a kind of right to do it since they made Darkling take me over. At least, I can say that and they'll indulge it? Because that's saying that I'm, well, one of them, and they want that. But the blood's not spilt until I prove it by calling a hunt, a real hunt."

"The blood's not..." Robin repeated, and frowned hard.

"It's not done." I leaned against Niko, and he started finger-combing my hair. "Blood's not spilt. And a hunt, it's like...I can't just throw a deer at them or anything. A bear, maybe. Or a rhino. I don't...there's not a lot of _paien_ they hunt around that I know of. Ow, Nik, stop pulling."

Niko was braiding my hair, fingers weaving through neatly and without hesitation. "I think we can worry about that after we deal with Caleb," he commented. "It is too bad Abbagor's dead. You could have given him to your family."

"I'd hesitate to say a mere cave-in could kill him," Robin remarked, frowning. "Caliban, do you want to be one of them, as you say? You and Niko were running from them, when you first came here. And you're not like them. You're not a nightmare."

I knew part of the answer to that already. I was half Auphe, not full Auphe. I was a monster, an abomination. But I wasn't _their_ kind of monster. I wasn't amoral for the hell of it, a killer for the blood. I was my own kind of monster. At the same time, though...at the same time... I looked up at Robin. "I'm tired of running. I think I can...get a truce and stop running, if I do this. I'm not giving in or living with them, Robin. I can't. Because you're right, I'm _not_ like them. But..."

I trailed off. I didn't know how to say what I felt, really verbalize all my half-formed thoughts and ideas and knowledge. Part knowing, part guesswork on instincts and hunches I was really only just now acknowledging. And...this was the Auphe we were talking about. They loved games and lies and futile hopes dashed in the end. They loved intrigue and deception and the convoluted chase of the hunt, down to the bloody kill. They'd let me try to prove myself, if only to watch me squirm. I could count on that, because I knew them.

"But," said Niko softly, "They are part of who and what you are. You're not human and you never have been, and you know enough to strike your own bargain with the Devil, so to speak. Robin, have some faith. I think Cal's just proven he can handle himself."

Robin's breath hissed through his teeth. "I think you underestimate the danger, Niko. They don't think like we do, and they're just as likely to lie as to promise anything."

"But I know when they're lying, Robin." I looked him in the eye. "For two years they raised me, taught me everything about them. I know them, their habits, the hunts, the stories." I paused, thought about it, and added in Auphe, "I can't keep running." Robin's eyes flew wide, and I knew he didn't understand...but the fact that I could consciously, coherently speak their language was not exactly a pleasant one to stomach. I returned to English. "I can't stay blind anymore. I'm going to take them up on _my_ terms, not theirs."

My voice was a little hoarse. Auphe was rough on the vocal cords. Niko was nodding.

"When we thought we could escape, running was the best option. You and I couldn't fight back then. We didn't know enough, weren't strong enough. We know now, why they wanted you. We know we _can't_ run anywhere they can't find us. The defensive, Robin, is no longer available. We must now take the offensive, and it's better to do it on the grounds that favor us." Niko nodded. "Besides, as Sun Tzu said, 'one mark of a great soldier is that he fights on his own terms or not at all.' Cal is only doing what he should."

Robin grimaced again. "I do not think this is wise. But I also do not think I can stop you. So I might as well go along with it." He sighed. He still looked pale and uneasy, and he kept looking at me. I wondered how he'd been able to forget what I was._ I_ sure as hell had never been able to. Niko had never once forgotten, either. We knew, and we knew, and what was more, the Auphe knew.

Niko was smiling, soft and friendly. "Thank you, Robin. You don't have to. I really...wouldn't blame you if you wanted to cut your ties and leave. It's not a comfortable option, really, but I trust Cal. He's got a level head, and he knows the enemy."

Robin was shaking his head as soon as the words left Niko's lips. "Common sense says I should, but...I won't. I won't."

It made me weirdly happy to hear that. From the way Niko closed his eyes and bowed his head, he felt the same, and Robin...Robin had the strangest look on his face. Sad, I thought, but also almost...pleased? I leaned against Niko and wondered quietly about it. Niko reached up to tug on my newly-braided hair. "I hate to break up the strategy meeting, but I've got to piss."

I snorted, and helped him up. Then while Niko and Robin drilled verbs and phrases in Rom, I spelled Flay at driving. The wolf talked a little, sleepily, about his son, Slay. Well, at least it wasn't "Flay Jr." I only had to half pretend interest; I was interested but I had a lot on my mind, and Flay himself was almost asleep, voice gone rumbly and deep and slow. It made him harder to understand than usual, but I could pick out the words after about a minute's delay. At last he trailed off into a snore, and slept heavily. I navigated traffic in the giant RV and wondered why these things didn't come equipped with a cow-catcher like old trains used to have. Or a bulldozer plow and caterpillar treads. Anything this big ought to have exclusive right of way, right?

Damn traffic laws.

Niko came limping up to see me as we entered the city proper. We started discussing hotels and rates and food service. Always important. I had a few vetoes based on size and number of cockroaches, and Niko had a few based in standards of cleanliness. Robin came up behind Niko, and listened as we drifted into comparing hotel fare with the typical lunch-lines of the local homeless shelters. Yeah, Niko and I were high and classy, alright. The classiest; free food was free food. We didn't _always_ have paying jobs, after all.

"Why don't you guys stay with me for the time being?" he said, and both Niko and I whipped our heads around to stare at him. Niko winced and Robin yelped as I nearly ran off the road. Flay woke up with a startled chuff.

"_Jesus_, Robin, don't say things like that!" I snapped. "I might believe you."

"You were talking about homeless shelters," Robin returned.

"Free food and a warm bed on charity is nothing to sneeze at," Niko replied. "We've stayed in enough to know when they're swindlers, anyway."

"Yeah, Sister Mercy's on King's Way is a scam and a half. The food's always half-spoiled and they steal your shoes." I eased the RV into a different lane. Niko chuckled a little. "Yes, Niko, of course I'm still pissed about it. Those were my favorite sneakers."

"I bought you new ones."

"It wasn't the same."

Robin cleared his throat. I glanced at him in the rearview mirror and met green eyes. "I'm serious. Stay with me until this is over. It'll be more expedient; I won't have to go looking for you at whatever roach-motel you've chosen."

"No, no, we stay away from the ones with roaches," I told him. "Bastard bugs bite and steal the goddamn sheets."

Niko chuckled again. At least he laughed at my jokes.

In the end, though, it was decided we would stay with Robin. Flay said he'd park the RV somewhere safe for the time being. Where, I had no clue, but if anyone could do it, it'd be him. He had skills, our friend Wolf did. It was too bad he wasn't going to stick around; in his earlier rambling he'd told me he was going to leave as soon as he got his cub back. Make for safer places to raise his boy. Hell, I didn't blame him. Yeah, Flay was really starting to grow on me. I'd be sad to see the Wolf leave.

But that was just how life was.


	17. Chapter Seventeen: Theft

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used here!

A special thanks to Kin-outcast1 for the uber-prompt review! Thanks to SensiblyTainted, halesgirl101, and Comuterale, and GenesBlues for reviewing! Thanks, Comuterale, for the song!

Cal says "FUBAR" in this chapter: it's a military acronym that stands for "**F**ucked **U**p** B**eyond **A**ll** R**epair." The military has a lot of fun acronyms like that.

I am posting this chapter a day early to celebrate the fact that TODAY I GRADUATE FROM NURSING SCHOOL! And I want to thank ya'll for supporting me. Writing fic has been my outlet and helped keep me sane: knowing ya'll enjoyed my stree-relief helped keep me positive. Thank ya'll very much.

* * *

_**Chapter Seventeen:** Theft_

* * *

_And all I need is you (come please, I'm calling)  
__And oh I scream for you (hurry, I'm falling, I'm falling)_

_Show me what it's like to be the last one standing  
__And teach me wrong from right and I'll show you what I can be  
__Say it for me, say it to me and I'll leave this life behind me  
__Say it if it's worth saving me  
_-"Savin' Me," Nickelback

* * *

Robin had a hell of an apartment. It was a condo, and the rugs alone were probably worth more than I could add together. The place was lavish, with wood floors everywhere, leather couches, artwork, decorative vases, the whole nine yards. I was in love with the refrigerator; stainless steel and damn near industrial-sized, it had enough food to feed a small country. The pantry likewise, and he had a hell of a liquor cabinet.

He also had all our weapons from the fight with Abbagor; he'd cleaned them all for us, and gotten the car done. Niko and I, of course, were spread out all over the kitchen table with newspapers down as we took our weapons apart and detailed them again. It wasn't that we didn't trust Robin's job, we just had to do it ourselves. Robin understood that, and sat on the counter watching us, drinking red wine from a delicate stemless glass. It was cool-looking. Me, I was working on my sawn-off shotgun between bites of a huge sandwich of just about everything in the fridge. Niko was not eating or drinking anything, and working steadily on his swords. He looked pale and his hands were moving slower than usual.

I had called Promise to tell her I had one of the crowns. Niko had called Caleb earlier. We were all set to go finish this gig tomorrow night. Only instead of giving Caleb the crown, which we needed for less nefarious purposes, we were going metaphorically bend him over a card table and fuck him without lube. We were going to give him the crown, take George, then kill him and waltz off with crown and girl in hand. Sounded damn easy in theory. I had the feeling that in practice, it was going to be a hell of a lot messier.

I glanced up at Niko as he stopped and put everything down. I opened my mouth to ask what he wanted when he simply pulled his knees up and put his forehead down onto them. "Fuck, Nik, you okay?" I demanded, scrambling to my feet.

His answer took a moment, and came with a soft, guttural noise of pain. "Yeah. Dizzy."

That was_ not_ dizzy but fuck if I was saying anything about it. I came to stand beside him, glancing anxiously at Robin as I did. Robin slid down from the counter, liquid grace, landing on silent bare feet. I bent to peer at Niko's face, my hand on his shoulder. His heels were hooked on the edge of his chair, his bare bony toes curled tight. His hands were clutching the edges of the chair seat, as if he might tip off. His breathing was even though, his shoulders only a little tense under my hand.

"I'll be alright," he said to me, muffled and blind.

I grimaced. "Nik...are you...are you gonna be okay? For tomorrow night?"

I knew the answer. It was _no._ He shouldn't have been up, didn't need to be planning, strategizing, getting ready to fight.

Niko lifted his head, and he was pale under the dark, dark bruising that marked half his face like a mask. He smiled, but it was thin and wan. "I'll have to be," he said, simply.

And that was the crux of the matter._ 'I'll have to be.'_ Niko was our goddamn lynchpin; without him the wheels would come off our plan pretty damn quick. Niko was the strategist, the leader; he called the shots, and I knew it...and so did Robin and Flay. Because that was Niko. That was what he did, and the more I saw Robin and Flay around him the more I recognized it. I mean, hell, I'd always followed Niko. He was my older brother, and you can't tell me there's not a single little brother out there that didn't start out absolutely adoring his older brother. But watching other people follow him...Niko had always been able to get complete strangers to do what he wanted, to be nice to us, because he had that extra _something_ that made people listen to what he had to say.

It wasn't that I couldn't think for myself, or that Robin couldn't strategize just as well, or any of that. It was that Niko was the one walking in front, and we were all following.

And that felt right.

It felt right.

I knew already there was no way he was going to be left behind, anyway.

He reached up and wrapped his hand around mine. I could see the pain in the tightness in his jaw, the fine lines around his mouth and eyes. He was hurting, suffering, but he wasn't going to admit to it. He was awful, he was breaking my heart, and he was the best older brother in the world. I bent down and put my forehead on top of his head, careful not to hit the stitched scabbed line across his scalp. He squeezed my hand, gently.

"It's okay, little brother," he whispered, and I closed my eyes to listen to the promise. "I'll be ready for tomorrow. Now finish cleaning your guns."

He pushed me away, and I went. Robin was frowning, but he didn't try to convince Niko to stay here tomorrow; he'd at least learned the futility of that. He could learn! Niko went back to cleaning his sword, and that did a hell of a lot more to relax me. I could pretend it was all normal and Niko was okay as long as he was doing normal Niko-things, and he knew it, which was why he was trying so hard to not act like anything was wrong. I knew that wasn't right, a self-perpetuating cycle of pretense, but the alternative was Niko was helpless and we'd crash this ransom-party without him tomorrow.

Yeah, fuck that noise.

Robin sighed and slid back onto the counter. "I think waiting is the worst," he commented, dully.

"Mmm. I agree." Niko nodded a very little. "Action is preferable to the tedium of waiting."

"Why do you always sound like you've swallowed a dictionary?" Robin asked, abruptly.

It startled a laugh out of me. "Alphabet soup?" I volunteered.

"My name is not Martha," Niko returned. Robin and I stared at him blankly. Niko stared back, then sighed. "I suppose it's been more than ten years since I read you that book. Martha the dog?"

I blinked, a hazy recollection surfacing. "Wait, that was the dog who started talking after she ate alphabet soup." I vaguely recalled the pictures of the book in question. Our childhood had been filled with books; libraries and second-hand stores had lots of books for unsupervised children to read, and reading kept us quiet. Sophia had never discouraged us from being quiet.

"Correct. Excellent job. I'll give you a gold star sticker later." Niko smiled.

"You do have an eidetic memory, don't you? It figures you would," Robin drawled, but there was interest in his tone.

"I actually do not. I just have an excellent visual recall." Niko shrugged a little. "And as often as I read children's books to Cal, I couldn't help but have them stick. I can still recite _Goodnight, Moon_ and _The Poky Little Puppy_ and _Corduroy_ from rote memory, as many times as I read them." Niko shook his head softly. "Not to mention sundry nursery rhymes, the entirety of Beatrice Potter's tales, and various other children's books."

I retorted, "It's a wonder you have enough room for those college degrees."

"In theory the human memory is infinite," Niko returned. "We simply don't make efficient use of it."

"All hail the king of efficiency," Robin declared, and gracefully saluted Niko with his wineglass, a mocking gleam in his green eyes. Niko snorted, but smiled, and gracefully dipped his head as if accepting the accolade.

Niko had to stop twice more and just breathe before we were through with all our weapons. It worried me. It worried me a hell of a lot. Robin said nothing about it, but he was watching Niko too, and I wondered if he was just as worried as I was.

Worry, by the way, does shit for sleeping if you're already an insomniac.

Niko, of course, was out like a light the moment he put his head down on the pillow. Niko rarely had trouble sleeping, but he was sleeping so heavily that I knew he was damn near exhausted. It was being up and in pain and still pushing through it, and I knew that. I could read it in the slack lines of his face as he slept, curled on his side. We'd started back-to-back, as usual, but when I hadn't been able to sleep after two hours, I'd rolled over and got up on an elbow. Robin could afford the really good shades, and the room was almost pitch-black without the lights on. But there was a little lamp on the table, which Niko had moved to the floor and left on. We were in an unfamiliar room, and it was habit, in case we were attacked. A little light was our friend and we could both sleep despite that.

I studied the line of stitches and the dark scabbing of the cut on Niko's face. It started about a half-inch above the outer curve of his left eyebrow and angled back along his temple for about four inches. The stitches were tiny, but it was jagged and ugly and crooked; it was not going to heal clean. He'd have a bad scar even if it didn't get infected or irritated. Three days after, the bruising was starting to break down on the edges, fading green. It was starting to drain, too, so it was creeping down his face in a really disgusting manner; the black eye was now mostly just a dark half-circle under his eye and the top of his cheek was bright red-purple-blue-black with long streamers as it drained. Yeah, he wasn't winning any beauty prizes, for once.

He breathed slow and deep and even in sleep. He twitched, muttered my name, and slept on.

Figured, Niko watched out for me even in his sleep.

I rolled over again and pressed up against his back. A shift made my bruises burn and one ached right on down to my ribs in a deep deep throb. I had to grit my teeth. I was wreck, too, from dear Abby's lair. Bruised to the bone in more than one place, over my back and shoulders and one spot right on the top of my hip that I'd banged on the counter in the bathroom earlier and it had just about made me cry right there, it had hurt so bad.

We weren't fighting fit. One day was not going to get us that way. But we were going to go on and go right ahead with tomorrow night. We didn't have any other choice.

I finally did fall asleep, and when I woke up the clock still read one-thirty.

I stared at it stupidly, hazed with sleep, before I realized it was one-thirty in the _afternoon_, not in the morning. I rolled over to find Niko climbing back into bed. He crooked a small smile at me, and laid down face-to-face with me. He curled his hand around one of mine, and I shoved my feet up against his shins because Niko was always warmer than I was. I dropped back off into sleep and I guess Niko did too, because when I woke up a second time it was closer to five and I was wide awake. Niko was asleep against my back, a heavy arm thrown over me, and Robin was poking his curly head in through the bedroom door that he'd silently opened.

I raised my head and blinked at him. Niko muttered something ugly and lifted his head, too. Robin raised an eyebrow. I saw the mischief in his face and I groaned and put my face in the pillow. "If you say anything that involves incest, I'm going postal on you."

"I would say no such thing!" Robin protested, but I could hear the laughter in his voice. Niko's arm around me tightened briefly, as if to pin me down.

"You would and you were going to. Or something equally distasteful," Niko grumbled, voice rough with sleep. "Unless you're here to tell us the food's ready or the place is on fire, get the fuck out."

"I was actually making sure you were both still breathing," Robin returned. "But yes, I am about to eat, and you're invited to join me. Though really, after such threats to my generous person, I should be offended and retract that invitation."

"Stick around longer and we'll do more than threaten," Niko yawned, but without any heat behind it. He sat up and stretched.

"Are you always so violent upon waking?" Robin wanted to know.

"Only when we've been goaded into it," Niko told him, and I knew by his tone he was smirking. I yawned mightily, then sat up and stretched too. Yup, Niko was smirking and Robin was smiling with amusement. He nodded and shut the door behind him as he left. I scratched an itchy spot on my chest and shook my head.

"I don't know why you like him so damn much. He's annoying."

"So are you, and I like you just fine," Niko shot back. I flattened my hand over my chest and dropped back on the bed. Wham, killshot. Niko laughed, low and amused, and bent down to kiss me on the forehead. I pushed at him, very lightly so I wouldn't jostle his head. He leaned back still smiling. "Besides, you like him too."

He had me there. I did. "Only when he's not annoying. Lemme up, bastard, I gotta piss."

"Fine, little monster." Niko pinched me affectionately on the arm before he climbed out of bed. I followed, yawning enormously. I felt pretty damn perky. I was also pretty sure I'd just slept more than twelve hours, which was a goddamn miracle. Somebody needed to call the Vatican. Not me, though, I was too busy taking over the bathroom before Niko could. All victory goes to me and my door-locking skills, yeah baby!

Of course, because my brother was a jerk, he picked the lock and wandered on in as I was getting out of the shower. "Goddammit, Nik, a little privacy?" I demanded, pulling my towel up. "You'll give Robin _ideas_ and where the fuck will we be then?"

"Balls-deep in innuendo and cheesy pickup lines," Niko returned. "Let me see your back."

"Like we aren't already?" I turned around and let him inspect my back, though. I was all shades of bruise, from black and blue to green-yellow-brown. I was _damn_ colourful. Niko's fingertips ghosted over my back as he outlined the newest acquisitions. A perfunctory tap on the shoulder meant I was to turn around and present my front, which I did. Niko examined my bruised arms and the weird splotch on my collarbone. He nodded, and reached up to touch the stripe on my temple.

"Looks like you just missed getting a concussion, too." He smiled a little, tiredly.

"Yeah, then we'd match. Can I get dressed now? Get out."

"It's not like you have anything I haven't seen," he snorted, as he turned to leave.

"It's called a sense of decency. Look into getting one, asshat."

"Jerkface."

"Whoreson."

"Bitch." Niko shut the door behind him, grinning all the way.

"Egg-sucking son of a cross-eyed possum!" I shouted after him, just because I felt like it. I heard him laughing all the way down the hall as I got dressed.

There was food, as promised, and waffles. Niko and Robin were making good headway on them as I came to the table. I joined it, and had several moment's pure bliss over the fact that there was real bacon and some really good black bitter coffee. Niko was actually eating, which was a big improvement from the last two days, though he kept it to a minimum and didn't have any coffee or tea. There was a cup of tea made, but one sniff of it and I knew Robin had doped it with Niko's prescribed painkillers. How Niko had known that, I had no clue, but he probably did know. Somehow, since he wasn't drinking it, and it was Niko's tea, the particular kind he bought and adored. I thought it tasted like shit, but I was a coffee addict and anything else was blasphemy. Seemed Robin agreed, since it was damn good coffee.

After Robin and I had decimated breakfast, Niko called Flay and Robin and I began sorting out weaponry. We were meeting at the werewolf club, Moonshine, and if there were going to be wolves there I wanted my sawn-off shotgun. Among other heavy-hitting weapons. I wasn't going to have the time to place perfect killing shots, or at least I wasn't going to plan on having it. I was going to plan on heavy assault and utter chaos. Alternatively, it could be that Caleb might have cleared the club just to be polite, and it would be as easy as walking in, trading girl and crown, shooting the damn bastard, and walking away...

...yeah, that was a pipe-dream not even acid addicts would believe.

Niko and I were firm believers in preparing for the worst. Thus, heavy weaponry and divide-and-conquer tactics. Niko outlined his plan as we drove to the club, in the same van we'd used the first time around. Robin drove and Flay and I sat in the back, listening to Niko detail strategy. He had decided that Caleb was most likely to use trickery and not give us George, since he probably wanted to use the crown on her. So, we were going to be tricky too. Robin and I would flank the bastard, going in the back. Niko and Flay, the main men with interest in a proper swap, would go in the front. I didn't like it much - I knew Niko wasn't up to top shape, and in the front was likely where the fighting would be thickest. Sure, Flay was good, but I wanted to be the one by Niko's side, fighting with him.

But Niko said it would be otherwise, and I'd do as he said. I was going to trust him because I couldn't do anything else.

Robin drove past the club once. It was dark. Seeing that, we did the bold and stupid thing and parked right out front. Why? It was damn convenient for a quick getaway and if Caleb expected us to act stupid, he'd get careless. The bastard probably already knew Niko was not coming alone; Caleb was wily and confident, and he had a right to be. He'd turned Flay into a lapdog and manipulated me and Niko from the start. Neither of those were particularly easy tasks, but he sure as hell made them look that way. He'd know that we wouldn't leave without the kids we'd come for.

We all wore black and grey, even Flay, making it harder to mark our outlines. We were all good at hiding in the dark; training, genetics, the skills of a hunter, the habits of a thief. We knew our way around the night, and I knew that nothing but straight black clothing did shit except make you a solid shadow outline for a target. The jacket I currently wore was in fact grey camo, and Niko was wearing a dark grey duster that did much the same. He had a dark stocking cap pulled low over his bright blonde hair, and Flay had a jacket with a hood he had pulled low. Me, I probably could have done with a hood myself - my Auphe-pale face was just a scream of 'hit me please!' - but I hated the way it blocked out my peripheral vision. I have great peripheral vision.

Niko caught my shoulder before I slithered out of the van. "Watch yourself," he warned, gently.

"Same to you," I returned. I reached up and grabbed his hand. He nodded, and let me go.

I went, following Robin out and down the alley. Robin found a window and within moments had jimmied it open. If there had been an alarm system in place, he hadn't broken stride for it. He glanced back at me, smiled briefly, and disappeared inside. I followed, gingerly, placing my feet down on a wooden surface before feeling my way to the floor. It was darker in here, and I had to stand there a moment before my night vision readjusted. My nose was instantly assaulted with the smell of alcohol and a thousand different creatures that had passed through here over time. There was no way of telling, without an immediate visual, if Caleb was here or not. Maybe Flay could, the wolf had a better nose on him, but not me.

In the dim purple shadows, I could see Robin bending over a crate. Glass glittered in his hands as he straightened. I ghosted up beside him and rudely goosed him in the ribs. "Later," I hissed.

He twitched and scowled at me, but put it down slowly. "Do you know what it's worth?"

"Later," I repeated, and he sighed. I rolled my eyes heavenward, then paused, looking up. I goosed him again and pointed up at the cheap tile ceiling. Robin looked up, then nodded with a ghost of a chuckle in his throat.

Alone, I walked out into the tiny hall off the storage room. The floor was brown industrial carpet, the walls a dingy cream. Floating in the midst of the stale lanolin-coloured paint was a single pristine handprint. Dark in the dark, I didn't need the wet gleam or clotting drips to tell me it was made in blood. I could smell it, iron gone cold and thick. It was the same size as my own hand, not small enough for either of the captives...but that didn't mean it wasn't their blood. It was too old and too cold to really tell, but I thought it smelled human. Damn.

I left the grim halt signal behind, moving down the hall in silence. I had my Browning sawn-off shotgun in hand, loaded with double-aught buckshot, the strap wound around my forearm. I walked with the barrel of it hidden behind my thigh. I was fast enough I could get it up for a shot before whatever it was got me. I looked, at first glance, unarmed, which would make my attackers think I was vulnerable. That in turn would make them arrogant and careless. The arrogance I could do without; the careless I liked.

As I padded past another door in the hallway, the door swung open and something pale barreled out and right into my left. Sharp teeth sank into my calf, and on the first running thought of Auphe I nearly brained Slay with my shotgun stock. For Slay it was, a wolf pup the colour of apricots and cream, with large liquid eyes that were the colour of chocolate and twice as sugary sweet. That is, right up until you noticed that was your blood on his muzzle and your pants tangled in tiny baby needle fangs. Hands down, he was the cutest little flesh eater I'd seen, but I needed that leg. I stooped and popped him on the muzzle with the flat of my hand. When he snatched back in shock, I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. Snarling, he twisted and snapped at the air.

"Hold still, you little furball, Flay sent me. Daddy's here, so be still and I'll take you to him."

He was about forty pounds of puppy fury and yeah, he didn't buy that. He growled loudly at me, and with a heave I picked him up by the scruff and shook him. _Damn_ that was hard and I nearly dropped him. "Shut up, we're going to find your dad, but be quiet or the bad guys will come get us both!"

Bad guy was a relative term, but apparently it had some meaning to a three-year-old. The growls cut down to silent vibrations in the narrow puppy ribcage, and he stopped trying to bite me. I nodded, and considered the best way to haul his little homicidal butt along with me. Leaving him here was a no-go, and trying to drag a toddler along was just as bad. I sighed and tucked him under an arm. He curled his front feet helpfully, then hooked a clawed back foot into my back jeans pocket with a scraping stroke that lit three lines of fire over my flank right above the waistband of my jeans.

"Jesus_ fuck_ kid!"

He wagged his tail. Dammit. I glared at him. There was a thick rope around his neck, fastened with a metal clamp. The trailing end had been chewed through; hard work for tiny baby fangs. The kid'd done good. The room he'd just left was empty, smelling of dog food and stale urine. Dog food, Jesus, they'd kept him like a street stray. I shook his head and kept moving. Slay balanced easily, obviously no stranger to being carried, but I sure as fuck wasn't used to fighting with an extra forty pounds on my hip.

The door at the end of the hall, like Slay's door, was not locked. That should have seemed like good news, right? Nope. If Caleb wasn't expending the slightest effort to make things difficult for intruders, that meant he had something nasty waiting. Forgive me for not wanting to jump for joy at that thought. I hefted my new unattractive furry growth, and slipped through the door. A larger room, I could tell by the airflow, but that was all I could tell. Slay, however, snuffled eagerly. Before I could guess it was coming, a ringing howl split the air like a siren.

I didn't speak wolf, but I didn't have to. I recognized a scream for Daddy when I heard it. At least I knew _one_ of us was inside. Flay's return howl wasn't necessary. I got it anyway. Wolves. Ruled by emotion, unfettered by braincells.

"Goddammit," I grumbled, automatically dodging to one side to take cover. It kept the machete from taking off a good chunk of my skull; the knife slammed home into the doorframe I'd just vacated, and the creature wielding it let out a bubbling hiss of disappointment. Sloppy. I honed in on the sound, lifted my shotgun, and let fire.

The wet splatter of destroyed flesh was nearly as loud as the shotgun's blast. The rank smell of riverwater and the unnatural flex of the monster let me know what it was; a vodyanoi. A humanoid leech the size of a man, with rubbery flesh and fluttering tentacles. In the water they were quick as sharks. On the land, not so much; thus the machete. Personally, I'd prefer to get hacked into bite-sized pieces instead of having my internal organs liquified and sucked out, but that's me.

The shotgun blast had done its job, and the vodyanoi fell flat. As I evaded its descent, I felt the fast beat of a small tail against my back and arm. Apparently the fuzzbutt had liked that. Like father, like son. I moved on, further into the club, listening. I could hear the sound of a battle ahead; the sing of metal, the crunch of breaking chairs, and a distant enraged growling that I recognized instantly. Flay was trying to make his way to us, but without much luck from the sounds of it. We were in the club proper now, and as I stepped out into the open room, I found who I was looking for.

I found Caleb.

Somebody else had found him first.

The amiable piranha lay spread-eagled on the floor. His blue eyes were glassy and blank, empty marbles. His hands were pinned to the floor with Spanish poniards. The peculiar pointed teeth were buried in the meat of his own heart. Blood coated his hands and his palms were viciously sliced as he'd struggled against the pinning metal as his chest had been cut open. The predator was now the victim; Niko would have approved.

Me, I knew I was in deep shit and this mission was FUBAR. Fuck fuck_ fuck._

We'd asked Flay why he hadn't just forced Caleb to give his son back. Caleb had_ associates_, people who had held Slay somewhere and would be very unkind to him if Caleb missed a phone call. We just hadn't realized that Caleb _was_ an associate; a pawn. And like all good pawns, he'd just been sacrificed. Slay and I were probably next on the list, because Caleb's blood was still warm and the heart in his mouth _still goddamn twitching._

"I really go need to put up the no freaks sign in the window. My property values are plummeting."

_Oh sweet Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick_, I was _dead_ and so was Slay.

I recognized the jaded contempt in his voice behind me just as quickly as I'd recognized the poniards. I'd stared at the son of a bitch over the bar, talked to him, and hadn't recognized or even suspected a master of machination and lies to be involved. I hadn't thought he was anything more than a lethally bored immortal. How lethal, I was about to find out. Panic had me bolting forward, already taking a step when he stabbed me; a burst of fiery hot pain midway down my back on the right. The blade crunched against bone as I staggered and fell, hot waves of nausea already roiling through me.

Slay tucked and rolled and disappeared into the darker shadows of the bar. I flipped over and snapped my shotgun up, moving fast as I could, heart pounding; the bastard kicked the gun clean out of my hands, slewing my arm out and damn near breaking it as the strap snatched free. The same heel blurred back to snap under my chin, putting me flat on my back.

"Educational." Shadowed green eyes brooded from the bloody blade to me. "That's a mortal wound for an Auphe. Freaks seem to be more resilient. Keep your heart in the human location, do you?" Another poniard was in his hand; he must've bought them by the gross. He tossed it in the air and caught it in a throwing position. "Let's test that theory."

Oh fuck oh fuck oh_ fuck fuck fuck._

Before the pressure building in my head could turn into a gate, an identical voice dropped from the ceiling.

"Hobgoblin."

Goodfellow plunged from the flimsy ceiling tile like an avenging god. He landed neatly, not remotely favoring his healing leg, and I had never in my life been so glad to see someone. Even better, he wasn't interested in conversation - he was swinging the moment he was firmly on the ground. I rolled away into the shadows, groping after my lost shotgun, blood soaking hot down my back. Not a mortal wound, no, and it wouldn't even slow me down. I looked up to see the end of the backswing of Robin's stroke and the whole of the follow-through. It was beautiful, violently so, but it was a failure. Hobgoblin was as agile as Robin himself, and the sword caught nothing but air. Robin nearly stumbled, caught himself, and whipped up his blade in time to catch the poniard's stroke on the hilts of his sword.

I drew my Desert Eagle and took a shot at Hob.

As my shot rang out, he threw off Robin's attack, crouched, and propelled himself upward, disappearing through the same opening Robin had appeared through. A flatfooted jump of ten feet and he managed it with ridiculous ease. "As much as I enjoy playing with you, I have things to do. Psychics to drain, blood sacrifices to make, freaks to kill." I fired a pair of shots after the voice, but all I got in return was a ricochet.

I measured the distance again. "You can't do that, can you?"

"No," said Robin, lips a bloodless line, face pale as my own. "He's older than I. He's grown stronger, faster. The oldest, perhaps even the first. And he's insane."

"I knew that," I managed. I was shaking so hard now my teeth were chattering. Dammit. "Did you find the girl?" I couldn't say her name. I couldn't.

"No." Robin shook his head, then jumped. There was a grunt of effort as he caught the edge of the hole and heaved himself in. "Without the crown he won't go far," he called down.

Which was damn good incentive to get my butt in gear and get the fuck outta here. I spotted my shotgun at last and scrambled to get it. My hands were shaking, I was shaking, my teeth wouldn't stop chattering, and I was cold as ice all over except for the hot, hot blood running down my back. That was about the time the four revenants decided to show up to the party. They came scrambling into the room, going right over one another like rats after a meal. I pulled up my shotgun and let them have it. Fortunately, with this baby, I didn't so much have to aim as I did point and shoot. Scattered shot is a beautiful thing.

The last one dropped and I stood there panting. God I was going to puke. "Slay! Come on, fuzzbutt, we gotta go!"

I smelled him as soon as he came through the door; Flay was bloodstained and in wolf form, his legs the graceful curve of a greyhound's. "You found boy." It wasn't a question. It was a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving. His ears perked slowly from their flat position against the wedge of his skull as he sniffed the air and then crooned a low soft calling note.

Slay came rocketing into view. He ran so fast he was a pale orange blur, then he jumped. When he landed in Flay's arms, he was a boy; a small naked boy with blood smeared around his mouth and staining his teeth. But he was also a boy with freckles, a thick shock of apricot hair, and a grin that wouldn't quit. Small arms wrapped around his father's throat and he put his round face next to the pricked white ear to whisper.

It was a sweet moment.

I leaned over and vomited up my earlier breakfast, my back throbbing. Oh God.

As soon as I got my heaves under control, I told Flay about Hob as we headed double-time back towards the front. If Robin could barely take on this monster, I was damn sure going to be at Niko's side for the fight. We were going to be ready.

What a lie.

I wasn't ready for what we found, not at all.

Niko...Niko was gone.


	18. Chapter Eighteen: Family

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics or the quote used here!

A special thanks to halesgirl101 for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to Comuterale, Kin-Outcast1, and SensiblyTainted for reviewing! A special thanks and welcome to Parnassus for joining us on this crazy ride!

Welcome to the last chapter for _Contra Bonos Mores_. All that's left is the epilogue. Technically it could have been a single chapter, but the division felt right.

I also wrote the entirety of this chapter in one sitting, in a little under three hours; that's 3,650 words in about two hours and approximately forty-five minutes. Not bad for someone who types with only one hand.

* * *

_**Chapter Eighteen:** Family_

* * *

_"We Can Make the World Stop," _The Glitch Mob

* * *

_**ANTONY:**  
__Blood and destruction shall be so in use  
__And dreadful objects so familiar  
__That mothers shall but smile when they behold  
__Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;  
__All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:  
__And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,  
__With Ate by his side come hot from hell,  
__Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice  
__Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;  
__That this foul deed shall smell above the earth  
__With carrion men, groaning for burial.  
__-"Julius Ceasar," by Shakespeare_

* * *

There were bodies scattered out front on the sidewalk; vodyanoi, revenants, all sliced and diced in Niko's usual butchering style. There were about a dozen of them, nowhere near enough to overcome my brother, even in his injured state. But in the midst of the bodies, there was the spoor of something that had been; slim and silver, another poniard laid beside Niko's bloodied katana.

By the gross, I thought numbly, walking forward. He bought them by the gross.

I knelt and touched the wrapped hilt of Niko's katana. The poniard was unbloodied; an arrogant signature.

_Blood sacrifice_. The Bassa and the Rom had been allies. The blood of one to make the device of the other work... Abelia-Roo's wicked glee and untold secret, Hob's poisonous words. Oh God, Niko's head. Hob had to have knocked him out to take him, and his head was already broken...

I felt sick. I was cold, frozen, and my world narrowed down to Niko's sword in my hand and the knowledge that Niko was hurt, taken, _gone_. Everything else was white static, blank noise. It didn't matter. I felt my hands move like someone else was moving me outside my body, stiff and slow; I slung my shotgun over my shoulder by the strap and stood with Niko's sword gripped in both hands. It was too long for my reach, balanced too far towards the point for my range; but it was Niko's pride and joy, his favorite sword, the one that fit in his hand like an extension of his arm. He had others, but this one he loved best, and I was going to give it back to him tonight.

Bright silver flickered in the streetlights as I turned the blade, flicked it in the sharp motion Niko had shown me to get the blood off: _chiburui._ I wiped the remaining blood off on my jeans, left it glimmering bright and naked and ready to kill.

Ready to kill.

The thought echoed through the cold chill in me, and behind it came a lightning rush of heat and hunger.

_Call the hunt, cousins, call the hunt_.

The drive to _hunt_, what is it like, you ask? Like lust, like hunger, like a fever. Hot and eager and hungry. You want, you crave, you're sick with the need, and you know how to _have_ what will satisfy. It's not the end, the kill, though that's a large part of it; it's also the glory of the running, outwitting the prey, bringing it down to exhaustion. It's the chase, it's the kill, and it's the living beating blood that sings through your veins and your prey's veins both.

Who needs revenge when you know, with absolute certainty, of death?

A hand touched my shoulder. For a moment I saw it; green eyes, brown hair, a mobile vulpine face. The sword in my hands sang a keen note as I turned and slashed without thought.

"Caliban!"

The voice checked me, and I stared down at Robin, on his knees in front of me, his sword locked with Niko's katana. His grip was white-knuckled and he'd blocked a blow that had been fast enough to leave a bright red line against his throat, bleeding in a slow thin trickle.

"Don't," he grated out, between clenched teeth. "Don't make me hurt you. Please don't."

I had no doubt he could. I was bred a hunter of the highest caliber, but Goodfellow predated swords; he'd had a hell of a lot longer to practice with them. I stepped back. I felt...calm. Trigger-ready, poised on the edge of the crouched leap that would bring the kill, burning hot and alive in the heat of the hunt.

I turned to Flay, watching with Slay held close. "Track him. Hob took Niko. Track him."

The trail was hot, fresh; even I could follow it, but Flay's nose was better. He'd know a fox's tricks better. And I...I was too hot, too eager, too invested.

Slay, resting against his father's shoulder, let out a growl. It was a wholly lupine sound coming from wholly human lips. Flay bared his teeth, but he knew me despite the Auphe within, and he nodded. "You find mine. I find yours." He sniffed, drawing in great draughts of air, then slung Slay to sit up on his neck, dropped to all fours, and ran.

"Cry havoc," I told Robin, with a grin twisting onto my lips. It was the death's head grin Niko wore in the heat of torture, the laughing smile the Auphe wore in the lust of the hunt, and it was mine tonight for both. "And let slip the dogs of war."

Robin stared at me for a moment, his eyes wide and white-rimmed like a frightened deer's. Then he turned and bolted for the van. I ran with him, keeping easy stride, the long loping run of a predator on the hunt. Robin gunned the motor and squealed the tires taking off. He careened around a corner, up over the curb, took out a newspaper box, and kept going. Flay and his passenger scorned the streets, taking alleys and vacant lots. Robin followed closely with the same disdain for the pavement. I sat with Niko's sword across my lap, and felt the ready energy of a gate in my head, the smile of the Auphe on my lips. Hob had no idea what he'd woken within me.

He'd taken Niko, probably because he needed a full-blooded Rom. But while he'd left me and my Auphe taint, he'd left out a significant detail; Niko was my brother. He was my heart, my soul, my protector, my rock. Without Niko, I would have nothing left in this world to live for. There would be no reason to try to be anything more than a half-tame monster, pulled down and tethered to humanity by a brother's careful love.

With Niko, I was a monster.

Without him, I was more than that.

And I didn't care.

At one point, Robin nearly ran down our wolf. I heard the surprised yip through the walls of the van. It didn't restrain Robin's driving in the least. He loved Niko, yes, but he was also in the same van with an Aupheling provoked to murder, and that was a little more pressing. I knew my prey, there was no doubt, but Robin had good reason to be nervous. I'd mistaken him once. They smelled the same, old as ancient, green and earth and musk. But I knew Robin, and he was not the one I would hunt. Almost idly, I wondered how long Flay could keep up this brutal pace. Wolf he might be, but not even he could run forever.

Fortunately, he didn't have to. We stopped at a church, old, but lovingly maintained.

"How appropriate," Robin grated out. "A house of God. He always did consider himself one of the first."

I stepped out as Flay opened the door, panting heavily, and flowed inside to deposit a grinning three-year-old into a seat. "Again!" Slay demanded, bouncing on the cushion. "Again!" Someone, at least, had enjoyed the headlong rush.

Flay stood between me and his son, lips curled away from his teeth, eyes white-ringed. He could smell me; the Auphe, the anger, the bloodlust. "Inside church. Puck, brother, girl. Others."

"What others?" I asked, calmly, feeling a thrill tingle through me. Oh, what a fight waited. What a hunt.

"Same. Revenant, vodyanoi. Many." He looked at Slay. "I not go."

I nodded. I hadn't expected him to. He had his child to keep. "Keep the motor running."

He hesitated, unease on his face as it slid into something more human, then nodded. He'd wait, but he didn't like it. I smiled, and turned to Robin. "You should probably wait too," I said, almost kindly. After the mistake I'd made...it might not be so nonfatal if I made it twice.

"I'll come with -" he began, then trailed off into a gasp in Greek.

I'd felt them coming. I didn't need Flay's frightened snarl or Robin's wide eyes to tell me. They'd been shadowing me all along. I turned around and eyed the pair of Auphe flanking me. They smiled matching metal grins, pale as death behind me. They were here to watch me, not to help; I knew that. They'd always watched me, and tonight was no different...except tonight, I was not running.

"The hunt begins, as promised," I told them, and the Auphe language came easily to my mouth. They answered likewise.

"We watch, cousin," said one. "We will judge," said the other.

I nodded, and walked towards the church, not bothering to hide. Why should I? I was Auphe, and I was death, and there was no escape. My cousins followed, and far behind us I heard Robin step out of the van. Brave, foolish Robin, to follow after me and mine.

The great doors were locked. Three successive shotgun blasts took them out. I ran up the steps and kicked the remains open. I slung the shotgun back onto my back as I moved, and when I plunged into the darkness of the church, it was with the katana in my hand; my ears rang to the shots and the gleeful laughter of the Auphe on the hunt. It was eerie, haunting, beautiful, their laughter. Careless and happy as children in play, silver and keen as the blade of the katana in my hand...and no less deadly.

The sound had the revenants scrambling to retreat, made even the vodyanoi check up and hesitate. Too bad for them, oh too bad. The vodyanoi dealt very rarely with the dry world, not often creeping from their rivers. They knew of the Auphe, but it was rumors, legends, not an intimate acquaintance. No longer so today: we plunged in among them like wolves among lambs. The slaughter was indiscriminate and bloody. I was hacking a path to the downstairs, straight through; the church was open all the way to the vaulted ceiling and night-dark stained glass windows; nowhere to go but _down_. The Auphe were simply having fun, laughing, claws and teeth bloodied, eyes glittering bright incandescent red in the weak candle-light.

I found the stairs to the basement and sacrificed speed for stealth. I wanted to catch Hob by surprise, in the middle of whatever twisted ceremony he was conducting, before he could complete it. He wasn't going to escape...not alive. I smiled to myself, almost tasting his blood on my tongue, my whole body singing to the thrill of the hunt. My quiet care was successful. He didn't hear me.

He didn't hear me because he was too focused on Niko. My brother was suspended from chains from an overhead beam, half-nude. His skin was more red than olive; a circle nearly eight inches in diameter had been cut into his chest. A representation of the Calabassa, it ran with blood. There was blood in Niko's hair, matting it to the base of his skull; his chin rested on his chest, and his grey eyes were open, blank. For an eternity of a moment I felt a heart-stopping chill - but no, he breathed. He was alive, but he was gone. Surviving, waiting for me. He knew I would come, because I could do nothing else in the world, and he knew it. Hob, standing before Niko, had a contemplative look on his face, tapping a poniard against his chin. Obviously, the first cuts were only the beginning.

He was talking, a braggart's boasting. Arrogance he didn't deserve; he was not all he thought he was. He was _prey_ and my heart beat faster at the recognition of it.

"This is the only symbol required by the Calabassa before sacrifice," he said, mockingly, "but I've always said going the extra mile never hurts." He leaned closer and touched a finger to the blood winding its way down Niko's abdomen. "I misspoke. It doesn't hurt me. You, my filthy, inbred Rom trash, are a different story."

That blood was not his to spill, not his to take. Niko was not to be hunted, not by the likes of him. Anger didn't temper the lust for the kill; it only fired it hotter in my head, in my heart, burning down my limbs. I eased across the floor, katana cocked back at the ready, teeth bared in a killer's smile. Oh glory, I would hunt him to his death, and it would be good.

Hob rubbed the blood between his finger and thumb, and touched it to the circlet of metal resting in his brown curls. The Calabassa pulsed with light, white and hot, once, then subsided. The illumination had passed through Hob as well; he had glowed, as if he were glass and lit from within. "Ah, apparently it likes the way you taste. How fortuitous." He flipped the poniard in his other hand into the air. "And when it's had its fill of you, I'll be ready for the sighted one."

I'd nearly forgotten about George. She was across the room from me, dark brown eyes serene and focused, her hands bound before her with rope. Her red hair was gone, cropped close to her skull in short choppy waves. She looked like a child, large eyes and quiet patience, silent and solemn. The scars down her cheeks were lurid and healing purple. She looked back at Hob, and he tossed his dagger into the air again.

I swung Niko's sword and cut him deeply. At the last moment he'd seen me - he slithered to one side and the sword bit into flesh, cracked a collarbone, and slipped aside. He melted away with a speed that fooled the eye. But I, I was Auphe, and I moved with their lightning-fast speed. He started to say something, gesturing as if to spread his arms, ignoring the blood that stained his unbuttoned, white linen shirt. He started to, but I was closing the gap, and Hob caught the katana on his Spanish blade.

He twisted the tip so I would hit the point of the poniard if I didn't pull back. I didn't, and it gouged deeply into the flesh of my hip as I twisted the katana as Niko had taught me, ripping the dagger from his hand and my own body both. Blood slicked my thigh and I drove in again, heart hammering to the hunt, smile wide and unstoppable. Nothing hurt; I was a live wire, wild and feeling nothing but the pulse of lust and need. His death was the cure to the fever that was burning me up. I was tinder to a fire I couldn't control and didn't even want to.

"Lose something?" I laughed, snatched the dagger from the air. It was wild laughter, high and clear like the Auphe's, and his green eyes were livid with rage.

"I have more, freak," he hissed, his hand disappearing into his shirt to appear with another. "I always have more."

The primeval-forest eyes, the tangled brown curls, the pale olive skin; he was a force of nature, deadly but stunning. You could see in him that he might well be the first. You could sense in him the age and the cold-bloodied apathy that comes from knowing all things pass. All things but you.

He brought the fight to me, this time. I blocked the stab at my heart, if barely, and the one at my throat, though I felt the tug of a nasty slice in my skin. Nothing hurt, and I pressed close to him, blades grinding together. I plunged the dagger in my hand into his thigh, returning it. The cords in his neck stood out with the pain, and there was anger and fear in his eyes both. The sunny tang of his blood in the air was driving me wild; I wanted to taste it myself. I could see the Auphe on the stairs, slavering after it themselves, eyes bright with anticipation. Oh, they'd watch, but they weren't to help. This was my hunt, my proving, my promise to them. No, they wouldn't help.

George was going to, though. She'd worked her way free of the ropes, her wrists raw and weeping iron-flavored blood. She must have worked for hours on hours, but she'd known we were coming. She'd seen it. She had a six-foot-tall candle-holder in her hands, and as I twisted the dagger in Hob's thigh deeper still, his own dagger plunging deeply into my side, she hit him with a blow that nearly took his head off.

I ducked, prudently. Females could hit like the devil.

We both hit the stone floor and George went to her knees under the weight of her weapon. But she'd done her part.

Hob staggered up to his knees, already recovering from the shocking wound that was turning his hair scarlet. But those few seconds that he was stunned were enough. I smiled, took him by the shoulders, and let the gate energy go.

It sliced clean through us and the world, roaring wide, and in an instant we stood in Tumulus.

The acidic cold cut through my bones; the air smelled of dry desiccated rot. The sand beneath my boots was blood-red and sharp as glass. The sky overhead was the weeping yellow of pus and rot. The wind was sharp and whined over the cutting rocks, the barren landscape. I tipped my head back and took a deep breath of the smell of _home_.

Then I put the power of a gate behind my voice and shouted.

"I CALL A HUNT!"

My voice rang across the dead land with command and plea all at once, a demand that would not be denied. The response was instantaneous; they gated in by the dozens. Just under a hundred, my monster family stood before me and their offered prey; red eyes gleamed, pale skin rippled over lean muscle, metallic teeth glimmered in the cold air. Pale and merciless, death incarnate, the promise of torture and lingering pain. They waited, breathless and eager, on the very edge of the same fever that burned so beautifully through me, and I laughed.

Hob was on his feet, and he screamed as their laughter joined mine, rising to the sky that pulsed like a cancer. They leapt for him, and I turned to watch the taunts, the whispered teases, the way ebony claws caressed his skin as intimately as the upcoming murder. He was trying to fight; they evaded his strikes like mirages, laughing bright and gleeful as they faded out from under the desperate steel. I knew what they'd do; they'd play with him, let him fight, let him run, and go drunk on the stench of his despair and fear before they pulled him to the ground and took him apart in strips.

It would be divine, beautiful and glorious and bloody.

One Auphe stood free, and smiled at me. There was a very familiar copper-and-onyx crown upon its head, resting softly over the silk-fine white hair, the brother to the one Hob still wore. The Auphe reached up and touched bloodied claws to the circlet. The tarnished silver glimmer of a gate flickered over copper and stone.

A weight settled on my own head.

I reached up, and touched the Calabassa.

It burned hot under my bloodied fingers.

Hob's slow death was certain, but there was one thing that I needed more than that.

One thing more. One single living soul that was my life.

I turned and stepped through my own gate, letting it close behind me. Hob's screams still rang in my ears, beautiful and horrible at once.

Robin and George stood there, waiting, awe and terror writ large on their faces. The air here was thicker and for a moment I could only breathe, staring back at them. Blood and the taste of life. I came back to them as a prince crowned, but the smile was gone and the fevered madness of the hunt was leaving me. I was Auphe, but right now, I was human too, and there was a bone-deep weariness growing in me. The hunt had burned me up from the inside out, and I had very little left to give. Very little, and I would give it all to the one I needed most.

I crossed the floor and reached up to Niko. I was too short, too tired, and too frail to bring him down on my own. Robin made a noise and moved to help, reaching up and wrapping his strong arms around my brother's body. I stared up at the chain links, then carefully opened a tiny gate. It severed the chains hungrily, and Robin grunted as he took Niko's full weight, bringing them both gently to the ground.

I stepped in and knelt beside them, reaching out to touch Niko's pale bruised face. Blank as a doll, he stared straight ahead; he was gone, no longer there. But I knew he could hear me, and that he'd be listening for me, and only me.

"Nik. It's time to go, okay? I need you to get up and walk. We need to leave, Nik, and I need you to help. I can't carry you, so you need to get up and walk."

My voice was frayed and thin, and my throat ached. I didn't sound like myself. But Niko heard me, and Niko knew me.

His expression didn't change. There was no return of emotion. But he stirred in Robin's arms, limbs moving almost mechanically. With our help, he got up to his feet. With a hand resting on my shoulder, he walked, and followed me up out of the darkness of his captivity into the open air of the church. Robin and George trailed along behind us, silent and still. Flay was still waiting in the van, with Slay, and he nodded as he saw us return, bloodied and victorious.

Niko moved obediently to my direction, and it broke my heart to see him this way. I sat at his feet, and put my head down on his knee. I was tired beyond all bearing, exhaustion dragging cold at me. Robin took the driver's seat, and we went home.

Victorious, we went home.


	19. Epilogue: Healing

**A/N:** I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used here!

A special thanks to SensiblyTainted for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to Kin-outcast1, Comuterale, Genesblues, Parnussus, and halesgirl101 for reviewing!

See all ya'll in a week with the AU of Madhouse!

* * *

_**Epilogue:** Healing_

* * *

_I've been running from something  
__Twenty years in the car  
__Down a road that's leading me nowhere  
__Yeah we drive through the farmlands  
__No-one knows where we're from  
__Could I kiss you and make you a queen?  
__Or something inbetween..._

_Do you want to see it?  
__The place where I am free  
__'Cause in my mind I need it  
__But you're nowhere near to me...  
_-"Twenty Years," Augustana

* * *

Three days.

It took Niko three days to wake back up and come out of it.

It wasn't the longest time I'd ever seen him stay gone. But it was just as heart-wrenching as ever, as horrible and depressing as the first time.

He didn't talk, not a word. He moved around Robin's apartment in a parody of life, doing what he should, doing what he was told, but without any purpose behind it. His face was blank, his eyes empty, and I had to watch him when he made tea or he'd burn his fingers because he couldn't feel it.

I was exhausted. Robin tried to help, but Robin didn't quite understand _why_ I had to shadow Niko like a particularly determined sheepdog, tell him to sit down or to go eat something. He started to understand, though, when Niko blistered his thumb on the stove burner because he simply didn't know it was hot. I'd seen it and snatched him away before he could really, really hurt himself. That was the second day, and Niko had let me bandage his hand without a single word, without flinching or reacting. I could very well have cut it off or slit his throat, and he would have let me without protest or response.

God, I'd forgotten how exhausting it was, how disheartening.

That first night I hadn't thought about it. I'd barely been conscious enough, when we'd gotten to Robin's apartment, to get me and Niko both cleaned up. We'd lost a lot of blood, both of us, and between the gate and the driving fury of the hunt, I was drained to the dregs. I'd never have to wonder again about the phrase "bone deep weariness." Hell, I was still living it. I'd slept a little but it was riddled with nightmares, both mine and Niko's. He didn't talk, but at night he _dreamed_ and kicked and fought and woke to press his face against my shoulder and cry without a sound. I didn't want to know what demons stalked him in his sleep. I didn't want to know what made him a prisoner in his own head.

All I wanted to know was how to make it _better_.

There was no magical instant cure. I knew it. Time was the answer, and waiting, and in the meantime we were both wearing down to the nubs. The bruising on Niko's face was faded to green and brown, but the dark circles under his eyes were from loss of sleep. I had a matching look. We were poster-kids for emo wannabes: pale skin and smudged eyes and no smiles in sight. I had a feeling Niko probably needed a blood transfusion, because he would come damn near to passing out if he stood too long. I had to keep making him go sit, please sit, Niko, will you goddamn sit down already?

And he'd go, drift along and fold himself silently up in a seat, and even if I was pissed I couldn't help but go sit with him.

I needed him, and he was gone.

But he needed me, so I was there.

Robin tried to help. He did. But as attentive and careful and smart as he was, I could tell he'd never dealt with this before.

Somewhere around the third morning, we started shouting and I started crying and it was just a mess. Just a goddamn sorry mess, and I knew I needed a break. I left Niko with Robin and went for a walk, because if Robin and I started yelling at eachother again, I didn't know who I was going to shank; him or me.

I went for a walk, and hoped it'd clear my head from the stuffy panic and anxiety and biting digging aching concern for Niko.

It didn't exactly work, but by the time lunch rolled around, I was sitting in a park bench a few blocks away and deciding I was too tired to even feel anything. I stared blind at the crowds a few feet away, and wondered how they could keep on smiling when I felt like shit and Niko was blanked out. It didn't seem fair.

But then, life's not fair.

And I knew that, I did.

But I also knew I was sick and tired of it not being fair. Niko...he didn't deserve this.

I rubbed my face with tired fingers and told myself I needed to get up off the bench. Go back and watch Niko, take care of him. Go back and try to get some sleep. Go back and apologize to Robin for exploding on him in a mess of trigger-happy emotions.

I told myself that, but I still sat there, feeling like lead.

Christ, I was so tired.

That first day, I think Robin expected Niko to come snapping back out of it, like he had after Everything. That had not been the norm, that instant kind of response. Whatever Hob had done to get Niko, it had sent Niko deep into his own mind, and he'd locked the doors behind him. Sometimes, I could see him under it all making an effort to get back out. Yesterday I thought he'd whispered to me, called my name. Today I was pretty sure I'd just imagined it. The idea that he might stay this way for a week or more made tears sting in my eyes. God, I just...I just wanted him to come back and be okay. That was all I ever wanted, when he was like this.

Lack of sleep wasn't the only thing making me weirdly weepy.

The gating thing hadn't hurt at the time, but now I had a tiny perma-headache, or at least one that had been there for all three days. My vision was off, too...colours weren't right, just a little, almost like they were washed-out. I hoped I hadn't permanently damaged my brain from gating.

Yeah, needles in your brain really just weren't fun.

It was what it felt like.

The second day, it hadn't been so bad, but then, I'd managed to get in a nap for most of yesterday. Today, in the bright hot sunshine, it felt like someone was stabbing me in the head. Repeatedly.

I rubbed at my eyes, pressing against them, but it didn't help.

Robin had said we could stay with him as long as Niko was not okay. I don't think he had expected it to take long. Tough break. I didn't know how long it would be. I'd move us out, except I didn't want to try to keep Niko in a hotel room, where it was just me and no help. I wanted to get us that damn fire station and finish our deal with the Mafia, but I didn't know how Niko had been in contact with them to start with and I didn't want to step into a legal loophole without his guidance. So the Calabassa stayed in my duffelbag, and we stayed at Robin's, and I thought to myself that it'd be a miracle if nobody ended up stabbed during all this.

Yesterday Niko had nearly stabbed me, and not even for any real reason, just because I'd been careless with sleep and temper. I'd shaken him out of another nightmare and he'd come out with the blade he kept under his pillow. Even like this, Niko wasn't helpless; he carried his dagger everywhere, and I'd warned Robin not to startle him.

I needed to go back and make sure they were okay.

I wasn't sure I _could_ get up. Inertia. Damn fine scientific principle.

This morning hadn't started out too bad, considering I'd been up and awake since one, and hadn't gone to bed until twelve, but shit, I was fast friends with insomnia. Niko had slept more but he always did.

Robin...I didn't know Robin's sleeping habits, but since I'd found him in the kitchen with a half-empty bottle of whiskey at two this morning, I kinda suspected he wasn't getting a lot of sleep these days either.

Breakfast had been fine, Niko hadn't scalded himself with his tea, I'd been okay, then Robin had started asking about why I was herding Niko around the apartment. I forget how we started biting eachother about shortcomings and poor battle tactics and inability to predict Hob, but we had and it had really just been too much. Robin hadn't raised a hand but he'd raised his voice and I'd just come out in tears so loudly and hard that I'd surprised us both

And I'd walked and walked, because I could walk for miles on end in this city and blend with the crowds and forget I was being myself for a little while.

Except I couldn't escape it entirely.

So here I sat, tired and aching and too hot in my long sleeves and jacket. The wound on my back stung and burned as sweat trickled into it. I didn't particularly care. It was annoying but it could stay that way. I rubbed my face again and sat with my fingers against my forehead, staring blankly at the faded grass. It was like...like the sun was on too bright and colours were bleached, like an old photograph or a really hot midsummer day. My head hurt in short, sharp stabs and I decided I'd probably given myself a brain aneurysm and was going to just up and die. That would be lovely. A nice ending for a monster like me.

Because I was a monster. I wasn't an Auphe, no, I was Aupheling. It was what Abbagor had called me and I'd decided it was a damn good name for me. My own kind of monster, like the Auphe were but lesser. I knew them, knew their love of the hunt and the taste of the kill, but I was not the same. I had morals and principles. I had Niko. I wasn't _Auphe_ entirely.

So. Aupheling it was. I had a feeling Niko would like it.

I couldn't wait to tell him, and watch him smile that stupid smug smirk.

Fucking hell, did I miss that smirk.

He'd probably smirk just like that when I told him that Flay, in a stunning act of indecency, had stolen robin's friend's RV. Simply driven off with it, and left a note in Robin's temporarily-stolen van that '_Was for Slay.'_ Robin had been incensed, but I was fairly certain it was only because he'd been outfoxed by a Wolf. Flay had dropped us and Robin off first, then delivered George to her home, safe and sound.

I'd only heard that. Robin had told me. I hadn't asked.

I didn't really want to know, because admitting I did suggested I might have a right to know, and I didn't.

I damn sure didn't.

It had...sure I'd wanted to rescue her, because no-one should be kidnapped or used or hurt, especially not girls like her, but I'd tried to the same. I'd tried to do worse. And in the end, Niko's need for rescue had eclipsed hers, in my mind. Her saving had been wholly second to Niko's, and I hadn't cared about her. That...I was pretty sure that if I'd really cared about her, I wouldn't have forgotten her. I felt guilty for doing that. Hell, she made me feel guilty all over and in fifty different damn ways.

I lowered my hands and rubbed at the scar on my left palm, the burn scar Niko had put there, the one hidden under gauze still.

"Not your fault."

For a moment I didn't even realize the words hadn't come from my own head.

Then I looked up into George's face.

Her dark eyes were solemn, her scarred face young and still. Her hair was bright, bright red and burned my eyes. I couldn't speak, couldn't move; haloed by the sun, she looked like an oracle, an empress, a goddess, a queen. She wore a sleeveless cream blouse and a dark brown calico skirt patterned with tiny red rosebuds. Her slim brown arms were bare of jewelry, her nails painted scarlet.

"He was right about that," she said, softly, her voice sweet, the scars stretched tight as she talked. "He was wrong to hurt you, but he was right when he said that it wasn't your fault. None of this was, Caliban. You shouldn't feel guilty."

She was wrong. I should. I didn't...she'd suffered at my hands, and she'd suffered again under a monster who'd stolen her, and I hadn't come to save her at all, only my brother.

"Caliban. You did save me. And I...I did want to blame you. I did want to hate you. My sister, she'll never be the same, and me..." She lifted her skirt. She had braces on her legs. I'd gashed her thighs open, torn muscle and fat and tendon. God, oh God. "I wanted to! But I can't. I can't, Caliban, because I can't blame you for what wasn't your fault."

I was staring at her in horror. I couldn't even breathe, and her words battered at my ears like rocks. I could barely understand what she was saying...what she was trying to tell me.

"It wasn't your fault, and it never was. I can't hate you for it. And you saved me. You came and you saved me. I can't do the same, Caliban, I can't bring you out of the monster's lair you've decided to live in. I know I can't take you away from Niko, even if I want to." She paused, and swallowed. There were tears on her face, catching in the raised edges of the scars on her cheeks. "I can't save you, but I can set you free."

She leaned forward, and her hands cupped my face. I closed my eyes, breath like a sob in my throat. She kissed me on the forehead, her breath sweet with mint and chocolate, her smell like gold and cherries and chocolate, cool and sweet.

"Caliban,_ I forgive you_. It was never your fault."

I didn't cry - I _wept_.

She stood before me in all her grace and beauty, a queen like no other in this world.

It was the kind of grieving that I didn't know I had in me, and it was as unstoppable as a force of nature. Once I _started_ I couldn't _stop_, and I didn't know if it was guilt or relief or panic or all three. Great whole-body sobs and tears and my nose was running something terrible; it was ragged, ugly. I didn't know how long it lasted; an eternity, five minutes, thirty minutes. It was timeless. But when it was over and I was done, I felt clear. Calm and quiet and ready to stand up again.

George stood there the whole time, and she smiled at me when I lifted my face, smeared with salt and snot. Her smile was pulled crooked, marred by the scars forever. "My family...they want to move. This...may be the last time I see you, Caliban."

Oh.

Understandable. She'd been through so much.

I didn't think I could talk, voice stripped raw from crying.

She touched my face again, tenderly. There was no anger, no reproach. Nothing but kindness. "Thank you. For saving me. You're a light in the darkness, Caliban, a light for those who know you. And remember...I forgive you."

She turned and walked away into the crowd, head held tall, back straight.

I watched her be swallowed by the anonymous faces, and tasted tears on my lips, and felt...

I felt...

...freed.

I stood up, and I went back to Robin's apartment. I was almost afraid to think of anything, in case I'd...I dunno, scare away the peace that George had left me with. It was lingering, and I liked it. I needed it, the calm and the quiet in my own head. I could do this. If George could forgive me for all I'd done to her, with a strength I could never hope to match...I could go and take care of my brother, whom I loved.

I walked into the living room, quietly. Robin and Niko were sitting on the couch, Robin with a book and Niko staring blankly into space.

But when I knocked a knuckle against the doorframe to let them both know I was here, Niko turned his head and looked at me. Not stared through me or past me, but _looked at me_. He was there. He was back. I don't know what he saw in my face, but the blank expression melted into compassion, and Niko held up his hands to me, welcoming, imploring.

"Oh, Cal..."

His voice was hoarse with the silence, but it was full of compassion and love.

I could hardly stand it, and if I'd had anything left in me, I think I would have cried again.

I went to him, and put my face in his shoulder.

* * *

_To Be Continued..._

* * *

_Move to New York City  
__Take your woman by the hand  
__Leave her there with your things on the doorstep  
__And there's no way around it  
__Could this be our last dance?  
__Fall asleep with the TV darling  
__I'll be back again_

_Do you want to see it?  
__The place where I was free  
__'Cause in my mind I've been there  
__And there's no-one there but me..._

_In the morning I'll find you  
__Let the light shine away  
__Down the road that's leading me nowhere  
__And there's no way around it  
__Could this be our last dance?  
__Fall asleep with the TV darling  
__I'll be back again  
__I'll be back again  
_-"Twenty Years," Augustana


End file.
